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Quotes by Novelist
"Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity."
56
"I have known him (Micawber) come home to supper with a flood of tears and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house "in case anything turned up " which was his favorite expression."
56
"No, it is not my sense of the immorality of the Humbert Humbert-Lolita relationship that is strong; it is Humbert's sense. He cares, I do not. I do not give a damn for public morals, in America or elsewhere. And, anyway, cases of men in their forties marrying girls in their teens or early twenties have no bearing on Lolita whatever. Humbert was fond of "little girls"-not simply "young girls." Nymphets are girl-children, not starlets and "sex kittens." Lolita was twelve, not eighteen, when Humbert met her. You may remember that by the time she is fourteen, he refers to her as his "aging mistress."
56
"Suffering so someone else didn't have to suffer. Sacrificing your body for someone else's well being."
56
"Everyday, God gives us the sun- and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Everyday, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist - that today is the sames as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment."
56
"I am two women: one wants to have all the joy, passion and adventure that life can give me. The other wants to be a slave to routine, to family life, to the things that can be planned and achieved. I'm a housewife and a prostitute, both of us living in the same body and doing battle with each other."
56
"No one but me ever put a hand on me to feel that baby. No one wanted to put his ear against it and listen...You shouldn't have a baby if there's no one who wants to feel it kick or listen to it move."
56
"The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's."
55
"The joys we expect are not so bright, nor the troubles so dark as we fancy they will be."
55
"But he was absolutely alone. No one ever wrote to him. Visited him. Totally alone. And I believe the happiest man I have ever met."
55
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
55
"The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly."
55
"Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual."
55
"Realism can break a writer's heart."
55
"That's what being a demigod was all about, not quite belonging in the mortal world or on Mount Olympus but trying to make peace with both sides of their nature."
55
"Youth is gone -- gone -- and will never come back: can't help it."
55
"People are scared to death and they're looking for something beyond themselves."
55
"I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing."
55
"My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted."
55
"It felt as though they were the only people in the world, two young women about to bury the symbol of their helplessness, as if that's all it would take to make them whole again."
55
"We tell our triumphs to the crowds, but our own hearts are the sole confidants of our sorrows."
55
"Electricity, the peril the wind sings to in the wires on a gray day."
55
"Funny thing about the monster. The worse he treats you, the more you love him."
55
"A good heart is better than all the heads in the world."
55
"Some details escaped her, but the regret remained with her."
55
"If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues."
55
"The Christian market has less competition and lower standards."
55
"One belongs to New York instantly. One belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years."
55
"I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely."
55
"An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why."
55
"I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years."
55
"No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful."
55
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