“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.”

“Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.”

“All at once I loathed her, because she had hurt me. This girl! She had torn up my sonnet by Dowson, she had shown my telegram to everybody in the Columbia Buffet. She had made a fool of me at the beach. She suspected my virility, and her suspicion was the same as the scorn in her eyes. I watched her face and lips and thought how it would be a pleasure to strike her, send my fist with all force against her nose and lips.”

“For the life of her, she couldn't understand how such an obstinate, boneheaded chauvinist could make her pulse race and her insides turn to jelly.”

“Something in her eyes
Must be the smoke in my lungs.”

“My veins are afire with music,
Her eyes have kissed me, my body is turned to light;
I shall dream to her secret heart tonight…”

“He felt as if his heart had dried up. I needed her he thought. I needed someone like her to fill the void inside me. But I wasn’t able to fill the void inside her. Until the bitter end, the emptiness inside her was hers alone.”

“Nursed amid her [London's] noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes?”

“Her soul in the balance, my heart in her hands
I made her a widow, she made me a man.”

“Afterward she lies nestled against me, her hair tickling my face. I stroke her lightly, memorizing her body. I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.”