"Lolita, light of my life,
fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue
taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the
teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one
sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores
on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact,
there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a
certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea."
- Vladimir Nabokov, 'Lolita'.
