My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.
Vladimir NabokovRead
You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that even the darkest individuals can possess an artistic elegance in their expression.
Vladimir Nabokov's quote highlights the paradox of beauty found in the art of writing, even when it emerges from the minds of morally corrupt individuals. It suggests that skillful and sophisticated prose can be a disguise for grim or sinister thoughts, prompting the reader to reflect on the relationship between creativity and morality.
In practice
This quote could be used in a literary discussion about the nature of evil in classic literature.
My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.
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.
A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
But that mimosa grove-the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since-until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life.
I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood - or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead.
Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.
Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.
The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.
Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.
Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing left undone.
The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.
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