“My Carmen," I said (I used to call her that sometimes) "we shall leave this raw sore town as soon as you get out of bed."
"… Because, really," I continued, "there is no point in staying here."
"There is no point in staying anywhere," said Lolita.”

“But, here was a curious thing. The more I tried to give up thinking of her, the more I said to myself, 'She's nothing to you', the harder I tried to pluck the idea of her out of my heart, the more she stayed there.”

“True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out — you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.”

“How did you find me here?
If I was blind, I would see you.
Stay with me.
Forever. That's the whole point. I'll never leave. Not even if you kill me.”

“This is the stupidest place I have ever visited,' she said. 'I shall never come here again.' The tall man looked at her in silence and nodded. 'Yes, you will,' he said. 'You won't be able to stay away now that you have come.”

“Which leaves us to the question, what is he up to?" Evanlyn said.
Will shrugged. "I suppose we'll find out soon enough," he said, and urged Tug forward to take up the point position once more.

They found out the following evening.”

“It got to the point where I sat on the side of the bed in a hotel room in London in early-1990 and said to whoever or whatever: 'If you are there will you please contact or leave me because you are driving me up the wall.”

“I would try out the [C++] language [at AT&T] as it was being developed and make comments on it. It was part of the work atmosphere there. And you'd write something and then the next day it wouldn't work because the language changed. It was very unstable for a very long period of time. At some point, I said, no, no more. In an interview I said exactly that, that I didn't use it because it wouldn't stay still for two days in a row. When Stroustrup read the interview he came screaming into my room about how I was undermining him and what I said mattered and I said it was a bad language.”

“Follow me,' Myrnin said. 'And do stay together. And by the way, this is the last time I go anywhere with you people. You are all insane.”

“So I said I wanted you to stay, even though nothing could stay the same.”