Describing his first night with Lolita in The Enchanted Hunters, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) uses the phrase le grand moment:
According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), his essay Reflections in Sidra appeared in the first issue (January, 1904) of a now famous American monthly, The Artisan:
In his Commentary to Shade’s poet 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) says that Shade shared with the English masters the noble knack of transplanting trees into verse with their sap and shade:
In March, 1905, Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific. Describing his father's death, Van mentions a maussade Lebanese beauty of fifteen sultry summers:
Describing his dialogues with Ada in "Ardis the First," Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions ‘minirechi’ (‘talking minarets’) of a secret make that they had evolved in Tartary:
Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (Earth’s twin planet also known as Demonia), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the L disaster that happened on Demonia in the beau milieu of the 19th century:
