Timon of Athens is one of Shakespeare's less well-known and less-read plays, so it's not often quoted. But Timon's speech here in Act IV Scene III is an excellent one. Suitably for a 1962 postmodernist novel full of cross-quotations and complex footnotes, there's also a possible secondary Shakespeare reference here. In Hamlet, the Ghost states that the glow-worm 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.' Lolita (1955) is of course Nabokov's best work and one of history's most famous book titles, but Pale Fire also received acclaim.
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears…