# Please help me with a quote from Nabokov's Lolita **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 5, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927 "2015-02-05T22:57:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/1 "2015-02-05T22:57:28Z")
I read the novel in a German translation some 20 years ago, and I thought at the time that it was the best thing ever written (haven’t read it since then, but Kafka always was a strong contender), nevermind the problematic subject matter. Now, I dimly remember a very striking evocation of abandoned love by Humbert Humbert at the end of the book in the vein of :“I would do _thing x_ to get back Lolita’s love.” which was very powerful and impressed me much then. I went through a hurtful break-up in those days and briefly planned to use this quote on my leaving girlfriend. Instead I bought her the book. It didn’t help ;). Anyway, these are old stories, but does that kind of quote ring a bell for anybody? The English Kindle version is on my Amazon wishlist, but I’d love to read that quote before, and I think that the Dopers are good in excavating such an obscure quote. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/2 "2015-02-05T23:22:58Z")
It doesn’t quite fit your paraphrase, but could this be the passage you’re thinking of? > [@H. H.](#): > > You may jeer at me, and threaten to clear the court, > but until I am gagged and half-throttled, 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 oû nous ne serons > jamais sèparès; 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 torn–even > 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. “sèparès” is [_sic_], by the way… I think Nabokov or his publisher got their accents confused. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/3 "2015-02-05T23:29:36Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > It doesn’t quite fit your paraphrase, but could this be the passage you’re thinking of? Wow, that’s strong stuff that I didn’t remember, but it doesn’t ring a bell. What I have in mind was a single sentence, very succinct statement, the kind of you can quote in a conversation, perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/4 "2015-02-05T23:39:10Z")
Oh crap, now I have to re-read that book, immediately. Figures I’d have dinner on the stove… ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/5 "2015-02-05T23:41:43Z")
Humbert on sex with his wife - “wielding my larger-than-life wife about the bed.” ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/6 "2015-02-06T00:10:14Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > It doesn’t quite fit your paraphrase, but could this be the passage you’re thinking of? > > > [@](#): > > > > 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 torn–even 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. On second thought, this has to be the quote I’m looking for. I didn’t quite remember how morbid I felt at the time, but that’s heartbreak for you ;). Yeah, that’s it. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/7 "2015-02-06T01:56:45Z")
Sorry for the double-post, but I have to comment on this: First, it’s amazing how the Dope can resolve such an obscure inquiry, in the first post(!) (thanks again, **Vinyl Turnip** , you know the book). I’ve had similar success once with a vague song question. It’s astounding. Second, how memory tricks you. I had thought that it was a profound, universal statement about lost love. After rereading it now, it’s just a sad comment on the bodily effects pregnancy will have on Lolita, and the statement itself is just a confirmation for the disgusting character of H. H. I still find it powerfully expressed, but in essence only cynical. Maybe I didn’t get it when I read it first, or maybe I did get it and only remembered the power of Nabokov’s language, and not the substance of the quote. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/8 "2015-02-06T02:56:14Z")
> [@seal\_cleaner](#): > > Humbert on sex with his wife - “wielding my larger-than-life wife about the bed.” HH on sex with a sick lola - “her brown rose tasted of blood”. This book as at the very top of my ‘must read again’ list…for when I get to the point in my life when I start re-reading books. Things don’t ‘get to me’, I don’t get squicked out, I can’t watch just about anything, but this book…this book really took it to a new level and it wasn’t until about the last hundred pages that got over the subject matter and realized that it was an amazingly well written book. There’s not a single sentence in this book that Nabakov didn’t sit and think about before he put pen to paper. He must have worn out his thesaurus in the process. I’d like to read it again some day and pay more attention to the writing now that I’m ‘over’ the whole pedo thing. Anyways, regarding the quote, I know she was pregnant (or had just had a kid) at the time, but I also wonder how much of that is because she was like 17. I mean, to him, she might as well have been all old and gross and droopy and stuff. She was practically a senior citizen. Remember, she was 12 at the beginning and I think that was to keep the readers sort of okay with it. The girls before her were even younger. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/9 "2015-02-06T03:57:02Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > HH on sex with a sick lola - “her brown rose tasted of blood”. Heck, memory tricked again. I didn’t remember that the book was so graphic, or I also didn’t get it then or it was lost in translation. > [@](#): > > This book as at the very top of my ‘must read again’ list…for when I get to the point in my life when I start re-reading books. Things don’t ‘get to me’, I don’t get squicked out, I can’t watch just about anything, but this book…this book really took it to a new level and it wasn’t until about the last hundred pages that got over the subject matter and realized that it was an amazingly well written book. There’s not a single sentence in this book that Nabakov didn’t sit and think about before he put pen to paper. He must have worn out his thesaurus in the process. I’d like to read it again some day and pay more attention to the writing now that I’m ‘over’ the whole pedo thing. That’s what I remember the book for: that it was really well written, although I only read a translation. I don’t remember to have been especially squicked out by it, but maybe some things went over my head then. Another possibility is that the novel is conflated in my memory with the Kubrick film I saw at least twice, which I gather is somewhat tamer. > [@](#): > > Anyways, regarding the quote, I know she was pregnant (or had just had a kid) at the time, but I also wonder how much of that is because she was like 17. I mean, to him, she might as well have been all old and gross and droopy and stuff. She was practically a senior citizen. Remember, she was 12 at the beginning and I think that was to keep the readers sort of okay with it. The girls before her were even younger. Yeah, maybe the pregnancy thing is another misconception of mine, I thought so because her child is mentioned in the part before the concerning quote. Your theory makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-with-a-quote-from-nabokovs-lolita/711927/10 "2015-02-06T04:11:12Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Heck, memory tricked again. I didn’t remember that the book was so graphic, or I also didn’t get it then or it was lost in translation. Could go either way on that one. It’s first written in English and I have no idea how a book written this full of prose (is that the right word?) translates. But, yes, it’s very graphic. When it first came out, reviewers called it eveything from trash to porn > [@](#): > > That’s what I remember the book for: that it was really well written, although I only read a translation. I don’t remember to have been especially squicked out by it, but maybe some things went over my head then. Another possibility is that the novel is conflated in my memory with the Kubrick film I saw at least twice, which I gather is somewhat tamer. The movie is very much toned down. For example, in the book they go into graphic detail about their sex life…constantly, while in the movie they just hint at it a few times. In the movie HH falls in love with lolita and takes her as a lover and that’s really his only transgression while in the book he’s boinking little kids pretty much from beginning to end. > [@](#): > > Yeah, maybe the pregnancy thing is another misconception of mine, I thought so because her child is mentioned in the part before the concerning quote. Your theory makes sense. It’s probably the pregnancy thing, I never really thought about it until now. It was just one more shot at getting her back. Though, IRL, I wouldn’t suggest telling your old girlfriend that you want her back…even if she does look like crap. OTOH, that maybe he was just ahead of the times with the whole negging concept.