Humbert Was Perfectly Capable Of Intercourse With

My Private Tragedy, Which Cannot, And Indeed Should Not, Be Anybody's Concern, Is That I Had To Abandon My Natural Idiom, My Untrammeled, Rich, And Infinitely Docile Russian Tongue For A Second-rate Brand Of English, Devoid Of Any Of Those Apparatuses–the Baffling Mirror, The Black Velvet Backdrop, The Implied Associations And Traditions–which The Native Illusionist, Frac-tails Flying, Can Magically Use To Transcend The Heritage In His Own Way.

Resemblances Are The Shadows Of Differences. Different People See Different Similarities And Similar Differences.

Genius Still Means To Me, In My Russian Fastidiousness And Pride Of Phrase, A Unique Dazzling Gift. The Gift Of James Joyce, And Not The Talent Of Henry James.

Just Like A Man Grieving Because He Has Recently Lost In His Dreams Some Thing That He Had Never Had In Reality, Or Hoping That Tomorrow He Would Dream That He Found It Again. That Is How Mathematics Is Created; It Has Its Fatal Flaw.

Solitude Is The Playfield Of Satan.