Art is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.

I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.

When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.

Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.

Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.

The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman.

To be a woman is a great adventure; To drive men mad is a heroic thing.

Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.

They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.

In life it is more necessary to lose than to gain. A seed will only germinate if it dies.

And why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart?

My heart is a blooming rose of self-love.

ONE WORDOne word— one stonein a cold river.One more stone—I'll need many stonesif I'm going to get over.

Man created words to free himself

It was the only ambition I ever had - not to be a dancer or Hollywood movie star, but to be a housewife in a good marriage.

My wife was fitted with a coil. For about 18 months I hated it! She used to pick up CB signals.

Peace ... is a morbid condition, due to a surplus of civilians, which war seeks to remedy.

There are many secrets; don’t try to resolve them all.

Optimist: day-dreamer in his small clothes.

His purity was too great, his aspiration too high for this poor, miserable world! His great soul is now only enjoying that for which it was worthy!

My own ultraviolet darling. " Lolita