The Tiny Madman In His

That Swimming, Sloping, Elusive Something About The Dark-bluish Tint Of The Iris Which Seemed Still To Retain The Shadows It Had Absorbed Of Ancient, Fabulous Forests Where There Were More Birds Than Tigers And More Fruit Than Thorns, And Where, In Some Dappled Depth, Man's Mind Had Been Born.

...for The Human Brain Can Become The Best Torture House Of All Those It Has Invented, Established And Used In A Millions Of Years, In Millions Of Lands, On Millions Of Howling Creatures.

Pnin Slowly Walked Under Solemn Pines. The Sky Was Dying. He Did Not Believe In An Autocratic God. He Did Believe, Dimly, In A Democracy Of Ghosts. The Souls Of The Dead, Perhaps, Formed Committees, And These, In Continuous Session, Attended The Destinies Of The Quick.

And I Want To Rise Up, Throw My Arms Open For A Vast Embrace, Address An Ample, Luminous Discourse To The Invisible Crowds. I Would Start Like This: "o Rainbow-colored Gods. . .

There Are Gentle Souls Who Would Pronounce Lolita Meaningless Because It Does Not Teach Them Anything. I Am Neither A Reader Nor A Writer Of Didactic Fiction...for Me A Work Of Fiction Exists Only Insofar As It Affords Me What I Shall Bluntly Call Aesthetic Bliss, That Is A Sense Of Being Somehow, Somewhere, Connected With Other States Of Being Where Art (curiosity, Tenderness, Kindness, Ecstasy) Is The Norm.