Lolita quotes

View Quote Lolita: Oh, there's no point in going into that! It's all over.
Humbert: Lolita. I have to know.
Lolita: Well, I'm sorry, but I can't tell you.
Humbert: ...If you're a sensible girl, and if you want what I've come to give you, you'll tell me what I want to know.
Lolita: Do you remember Dr. Zempf?...That German psychologist who came to see you at Beardsley.
Humbert: Was it him?
Lolita: Not exactly.
Humbert: I didn't come here to play guessing games. Tell me who it was.
Lolita: Well, give me a chance to explain...Do you remember that car that used to follow us around?...Do you remember mother's old flame at the school dance? No, you probably wouldn't remember him. Do you remember the guy that you talked to at that hotel on the way back from camp? He pretended that he was part of that police convention that was there...And do you remember that guy that called you at the hotel?
Humbert: The night you disappeared? Yes, I remember him very well.
Lolita: And yet you still haven't guessed.
Humbert: I told you that I'm not playing games with you. Tell me who it was.
Lolita: It was Clare Quilty.
Humbert: Who was Clare Quilty?
Lolita: All of them, of course.
Humbert: You mean Dr. Zempf, he was Clare Quilty?
Lolita: Well, congratulations. I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that when you moved into our house, my whole world didn't revolve around you. You see, I'd had a crush on him ever since the times that he used to come and visit mother. He wasn't like you and me. He wasn't a normal person. He was a genius. He had a kind of, uh, beautiful, Japanese, Oriental philosophy of life. You know that hotel that we stopped at on the way back from camp. Well, it was just by accident that he was staying there. But it didn't take him long to figure out what was going on between us. And from that moment on, he was up to every brilliant trick he could think of.
Humbert: And he did all these brilliant tricks for the sheer fun of tormenting me?
Lolita: Well, sometimes he had to. Like the German psychologist bit. He had to trick you into letting me be in his play. Otherwise, how would I ever get to see him?
Humbert: So that's why you wanted to be in the play.
Lolita: That's right.
Humbert: And all those afternoons you were supposed to be practicing the piano, you were actually with this man?
Lolita: Mmm, hmm. I guess he was the only guy I was ever really crazy about.
Humbert: Aren't you forgetting something?
Lolita: Oh, Dick. Dick's very sweet. We're very happy together, but I guess it's just not the same thing.
Humbert: And I? I suppose I never counted, of course.
Lolita: You have no right to say that. After all, the past is the past.
Humbert: What happened to this Oriental-minded genius?
Lolita: Look, don't make fun of me. I don't have to tell you a blasted thing.
Humbert: I am not making fun of you. I am merely trying to find out what happened. When you left the hospital, where did he take you?
Lolita: To New Mexico...to a dude ranch near Santa Fe. The only problem with it was, he had such a bunch of weird friends staying there...painters, nudists, writers, weight lifters. But I figured I could take anything for a couple of weeks because I loved him and he was on his way to Hollywood to write one of those spectaculars, and he promised to get me a studio contract. But it never turned out that way and instead, he wanted me to cooperate with the others making some kind of a, you know, an art movie.
Humbert: An art movie?...And you did it?
Lolita: No, I didn't do it. And so he kicked me out.
Humbert: You could have come back to me.

View Quote Humbert: This may be neither here nor there, but I've got to say it. Life is very short. Between here and that old car outside is twenty-five paces. Make them now, right now...Come away with me now, just as you are.
Lolita: Oh, you mean you'll give us the money only if I go to a hotel with you.
Humbert: No, you've got it all wrong. I want you to leave your husband and this awful house. I want you to live with me and die with me, and EVERYTHING with me.
Lolita: You must be crazy!
Humbert: I'm perfectly serious, Lo. I've never been less crazy in all my life. We'll start a-fresh. We can forget everything that has happened.
Lolita: No, it's too late.
Humbert: No, it's not too late...don't tell me that it's too late because it's not too late. If you want time to think it over, that's perfectly all right with me, because I've waited already for three years and I think I could wait for the rest of my life if necessary. You're not giving anything up. There's nothing here to keep you...You're not bound to him in any way, as you are bound to me by everything that we have lived through together - you and I.
Lolita: I'm going to have his baby in three months...I've wrecked too many things in my life. I can't do that to him. He needs me. [Humbert begins crying] Oh, come on, now don't make a scene. Stop crying! He could walk in here at any minute. Will you please stop crying?

View Quote Humbert: There are no strings attached. It's only money anyway. It comes from the rent of the house - that's four hundred dollars in cash...I made out a check here for two thousand, five hundred dollars. There's someone in Ramsdale who's prepared to take care of the mortgage of the house. There's the downpayment. That's the payment.
Lolita: You mean we're getting thirteen thousand dollars? Wonderful. Oh, come on now, don't cry. I'm sorry. Try to understand. I'm really sorry that I cheated so much, but I guess that's just the way things are.
...
Lolita: Hey, well listen, let's keep in touch, huh? I'll write to you when we get to Alaska.