Please read Alexey Sklyarenko's annotations on Pale Fire, Ada and other Nabokov works here.
According to Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), King Alfin's question "What emperor?" has remained his only memorable mot:
In his Foreword and Commentary to Shade's poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions Gerald Emerald, a young instructor at Wordsmith University who gives Gradus (Shade's murderer) a lift to Kinbote's rented house in New Wye:
As he speaks to Van, Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) mentions his young mistress, Cordelia O'Leary:
In his Commentary to Shade's poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) quotes Conmal's sonnet in which Conmal (the Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) says that he is not a slave and calls Shakespeare "Master:"
According to Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), in Nice Gradus (Shade’s murderer) stayed at Hotel Lazuli:
Telling Van about Uncle Dan's odd Boschean death, Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) says: "but you are not following me, you want me to go, so that you may interrupt her beauty sleep, lucky beast:"
Describing his first night with Ada in “Ardis the Second,” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Blanche, a French handmaid at Ardis who wears a miniver cloak that Ada had lost in the woods:
After his first night with Ada in “Ardis the Second” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) calls Ada "my phantom orchid" and compares himself to a certain Venetian (Giacomo Casanova, 1725-98):
The butler, now fully dressed, arrived with the coffee and toast. And the Ladore Gazette. It contained a picture of Marina being fawned upon by a young Latin actor.
Describing Villa Venus (Eric Veen's floramors), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Madam-I’m-Adam House:
Eccentricity is the greatest grief’s greatest remedy. The boy’s grandfather set at once to render in brick and stone, concrete and marble, flesh and fun, Eric’s fantasy. He resolved to be the first sampler of the first houri he would hire for his last house, and to live until then in laborious abstinence.
Before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) calls Blanche (a French handmaid at Ardis who promised to Demon the drinks) "a passing angel:"
Demon shed his monocle and wiped his eyes with the modish lace-frilled handkerchief that lodged in the heart pocket of his dinner jacket. His tear glands were facile in action when no real sorrow made him control himself.