How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #10
...she passed me a hand mirror so that I might see the smear of blood on my cheekbone where at some indeterminable time I had crushed a gorged mosquito by the unconscious act of propping my cheek on my fist. But I saw more than that. Looking into my own eyes, I had the shocking sensation of finding the mere dregs of my usual self, odds and ends of an evaporated identity which it took my reason quite an effort to gather again in the glass. (11.5.5)
After writing his first poem, Nabokov looks in the mirror and finds himself lessened: writing, he learns, takes a lot of energy. It requires that you give something of yourself, and you never know what you'll be left with after you're done.