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.

Without needing to spell things out in black and white, Nabokov has told us almost everything we need to know coming into the story. The author is obsessed with a girl - so obsessed that even the sound of her name fascinates him. We know she's young because of the height and the "at school" description. We know she's with him because of the "in the morning...in one sock" and "in my arms" comments.

The sense of urgency is clear because the first two bits are sentence fragments conveying intense desire and emotion. This is followed by a long sentence, obsessive in quality, that describes very well the way the name is said. "A trip of three steps down the palate" is not usually how people describe pronunciation. That's very clever imagery.

The different nicknames show different sides of the same girl - in the morning, after his lust had been sated, he calls her "Lo" in a casual, familiar way, but without the same burning desire. "...standing four feet ten in one sock" is a great descriptive phrase - it doesn't go on and on but it gives you enough information to make a vivid mental image nonetheless.

Once she's dressed in the morning, she's "Lola" - a sense of formality has descended. Her friends called her Dolly but not the author. He notes she was officially "Dolores", in case anyone thought her name was something else, but not by saying "Her real name was Dolores", which would be a bit crude, but by saying "She was Dolores on the dotted line". Again, it's a compact sentence but it conveys the image of her signing something, it's a bit more vivid and fresh than a simple affirmation and it is unambiguous.

Finally, we are brought back to the initial sentence fragments and reminded that this girl is in a relationship that by most measures is completely inappropriate for a girl "four feet ten" and "in school". She is Lolita in the heat of passion.

Note that here, as elsewhere, the author does not provide any pornographic descriptions. We know what is happening without needing to know details - "in my arms" is a good way to be clear enough without the details.

That's my explanation of the exact words that I cut from Lolita. The words are carefully chosen and well used, the sentences flow and the imagery is vivid. We have learned volumes with a few carefully-chosen sentences.