The poor lady was in her middle thirties, she had a shiny forehead, plucked eyebrows and quite simple but not unattractive features of a type that may be defined as a weak solution of Marlene Dietrich.
(Humbert description of Charlotte, incidental wife.)

“Look, Lo, at all those cows on that hillside.”
“I think I’ll vomit if I look at a cow again.”

I was about to move away when his voice addressed me:
“Where the devil did you get her?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said: the weather is getting better.”
“Seems so.”
“Who’s the lassie?”
“My daughter.”
“You lie—she’s not.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said: July was hot.”
(Quilty and Humbert early dialogue.)

“Well—I joined in all the activities that were offered.”
“Ensuite?”
“Ansooit, I was taught to live happily and richly with others and to develop wholesome personality. Be a cake, in fact.”
“Yes. I saw something of that sort in the booklet.”
“We loved the sings around the fire in the big stone fireplace or under the darned stars, where every girl merged her own spirit of happiness with the voice of the group.”
“Your memory is exellent, Lo, but I must trouble you to leave out the swear words. Anything else?”
(Lolita about the summer camp.)

A great user of roadside facilities, my unfastidious Lo would be charmed by toilet signs—Guys-Gals, John-Jane, Jack-Jill and even Buck’s-Doe’s;

Mission Dolores: good title for book.

I’m a greater admirer of Sicilians, fine athlets, fine musicians, fine upright people, Lo, and great lovers. But let’s not digress.
(Humbert after pointing out that in Sicily are accepted sexual relation between father and daughter.)

Dick, with a grin of relief stood up. He guessed Bill and he would be going back to fix those wires. He guessed Mr. Haze and Dolly had loads of things to say to each other. He guessed he would be seeing me before I left. Why those people guess so much and shave so little, and are disdainful of hearing aids?

I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you.

We fell to wrestling again. We rolled all over the floor, in each other arms, like two huge helpless children. He was naked and goatish under his robe, and I felt suffocated as he rolled over me. I rolled over him. We rolled over me. They rolled over him. We rolled over us.
(Humbert and Quilty final confrontation.)

The road now stretched across open country, and it occur to me—not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience—that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good.
(Humbert after the murder.)

Lolita is a book that lends itself to a myriad of different interpretations, with each reader finding a different meaning within the story. Many readers are first drawn to Lolita expecting the tale of the escapades of a pedophile and his victim, a “lewd book. They expected the rising succession of erotic scenes; when these stopped, the readers stopped too, and felt bored and let down.” (Nabokov 313) It is overly simplistic to define Lolita as a novel about pedophilia –certainly one of the many elements of the story, but by no means the main theme. What makes Lolita a classic is Nabokov’s ability to weave so many elements into his writing, that each re-reading reveals a slightly different, and more profound layer to the book. The reader who opens the book expecting a simple story of pedophilia and sexual exploitation finds himself quickly immersed in the ever shifting quicksand of Humbert Humbert,’s narration. Although Humbert’s sexual attraction to barely pubescent girls, or nymphets makes him easily classifiable as a pedophile, his love for Lolita metamorphoses in the course of the novel like one of Nabokov’s beloved butterflies, starting out as immature adolescent obsession, and culminating in the mature, selfless love that parents feel for their children.
In order to meet the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for diagnosis of pedophilia, a person must exhibit certain characteristics:
“A. Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger); B. The person has acted on these sexual urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty; C. The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A.” (Wikipedia)
According to this definition, Humbert’s obsession with young girls “Between the age limits of nine and fourteen…” can be categorized as pedophilia. However, Humbert is not attracted to all girls in that age group, but only to a select few, “who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human…and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as “nymphets”. (Nabakov 16) According to Humbert, these girls exhibit “mysterious characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering, insidious charm …” that set them apart from other girls their age. (Nabakov 17)
Humbert excuses his fantasies by blaming his obsession on his unfulfilled early adolescent love affair with his age-mate Annabelle Lee. “We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives….I found myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man of twenty-five to court a girl of sixteen but not a girl of twelve”. (Nabakov 18)

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