Stan, I tried to search into another dic: "Thematic
Dictionary of Quotations" ( Bloomsburry Reference, ed.
John Daintith,1988), on Vladimir Nabokov
( Russian-born US novelist). Here is what I got:
Academics
" Like so many ageing college people, Pnin
had long ceased to notice the existence of students on the
campus."(Pnin, Ch.3)
Cambridge
"Spring and summer did happen in Cambridge
almost every year" (RLSK,ch.5)
Education
"Discussion in
class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky
neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know"
(Pnin, Ch.6)
Life and Death
"Life is a great surprise. I do not see why
death should not be an even greater one." (Pale Fire, 'Commentary')
Literature
"Literature and butterflies are the two
sweetest passions known to man." (Radio Times, Oct 1962)
Lust
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.
My sin, my Soul." (Lolita)
Writers
"A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully
at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past." (
Strong Opinions, Ch.20)
Writing
" Poor Knight! he really had two periods,
the first - a dull man writing broken English, the second - a broken
man writing dull English" (RLSK,ch.1)
That's all... among "10.500 entries under
700 themes".
Strange! Nothing under "Love", "Prose",
"Parasites" "Self","Sex" (they carry no "Paradise" theme)
Perhaps it's a matter of British export
material. A third dictionary I checked was as uninspired as the first
two ( and I don't have its "sister edition" devoted to XXth Century
authors).
In "The New Penguin Dictionary of
Quotations" (by J.M. and M.J Cohen), 1996, there are three entries: a
longer excerpt of Lolita's "lust lines"; foreword of SO:"
I think like a genius, I write like a
distinguished author, and I speak like a child." At last "Satire is a lesson, parody is a game."