I adore you, mon petit, and would never allow him to hurt you, no matter how gently or madly.

Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.

And the rest is rust and stardust.

Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.

Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.

Loneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.

Be the type of man a wife would cherish and a child would admire.

There's no idea in the world that is not contained by black life. I could write forever about the black experience in America.

Wasn't it? Is loyalty still a commendable quality when it is misdirected?

Lust is the devil's counterfeit for love. There is nothing more beautiful on earth than a pure love and there is nothing so blighting as lust.

In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude.

Making films is no longer a way of acting, it is a way of life.

Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil.

Policymakers think that if they get the abstractions right, that will drive behavior in the desired direction. But the world happens in real time.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

If you feel strongly about someone, go up to them. Pursue what you want in life. Why be shy about something like that?