From ‘Lolita’, by Vladimir Nabokov

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip o three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

“You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose.”

About his aunt​: ​​​
“She wrote poetry. She was poetically superstitious. She said she knew she would die soon after my sixteenth birthday, and did.”

“Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, democratic); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as ‘nymphets’.”

“ — — the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.”

“After all, Dante fell madly in love with his Beatrice when she was nine, a sparkling girleen, painted and lovely, and bejeweled, in crimson frock, and this was in 1274 in Florence, at a private feast in the merry month of May.”

​About the little girl, what the author calls nymphets:
“​Ah, leave me alone in my pubescent park, in my mossy garden. Let them play around me forever. Never grow up.”

“I long for a terrific disaster. Earthquake. Spectacular explosion. Her mother is messily but instantly and permanently eliminated, along with everybody else for miles around. Lolita whimpers in my arms. A free man, I enjoy her among the ruins.”

​Now would be a good time to mention that Lolita is a 12 year old girl.
“​I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever, but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita. She would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or so she would cease being a nymphet and would turn into a ‘young girl’, and then, into a ‘college girl’ — — that horror of horrors. The words ‘forever’​ referred only to my own passion, to the eternal Lolita as reflected in my blood.”

“The whole point is that the old link between the adult world and the child world has been completely severed nowadays by new customs and new laws.”

“But somewhere behind the raging bliss, bewildered shadows conferred — and not to have heeded them, this is what I regret!”

“… do not skip these essential pages! Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me, trembling in the fore at of my own iniquity; let’s even smile a little. After all, there is no harm in smiling.”

“We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country, that, by then, in retrospect, was no more than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires and her sobs in the night — every night, every night — the moment I feigned sleep.”

“You know, what’s so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.”

“I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you.”

“Whether the basic conflict in “Hedda Gabler,” or where are the climaxes in “Love Under the Lindens,” or analyze the prevailing mood of “Cherry Orchard”; it was really a matter of learning to betray me.”

Just hits the spot:
“I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her — after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred — I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever — for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation) — and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell again — and “oh, no” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure — all would be shattered.”

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