Winona Baird

“Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
Of hate and remorse I’m dying.
And again my hairy fist I raise,
And again I hear you crying.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had rolled myself upon with such cries in the past; an echo on the brink of a russet ravine, with a far wood under a white sky, and brown leaves choking the brook, and one last cricket in the crisp weeds... but thank God it was not that echo alone that I worshipped. What I used to pamper among the tangled vines of my heart, mon grand pch radieux, had dwindled to its essence: sterile and selfish vice, all that I cancelled and cursed. You may jeer at me, and threaten to clear the court, but until I am gagged and halfthrottled, I will shout my poor truth. I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another’s child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine; Changeons de vie, ma Carmen, allons vivre quelque, part o nous ne serons jamais spars; Ohio? The wilds of Massachusetts? No matter, even if those eyes of hers would fade to myopic fish, and her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety delicate delta be tainted and torneven then I would go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of your raucous young voice, my Lolita.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita. She would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or so she would cease being a nymphet and would turn into a “young girl,” and then, into a “college girl”—that horror of horrors.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“Humbert Humbert: You know, I've missed you terribly.
Lolita Haze: I haven't missed you. In fact, I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you.
Humbert Humbert: Oh?
Lolita Haze: But it doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway.
Humbert Humbert: What makes you say I've stopped caring for you?
Lolita Haze: Well, you haven't even kissed me yet, have you?”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita