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Authors:
Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

Vladimir Nabokov quotes

American Novelist, Writer April 22, 1899 – July 2, 1977

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Quotes

The softness and fragility of baby animals caused us the same intense pain. She wanted to be a nurse in some famished Asiatic country; I wanted to be a famous spy. Vladimir Nabokov
She was an extravagantly slender girl. Her ribs showed. The conspicuous knobs of her hipbones framed a hollowed abdomen, so flat as to belie the notion of "belly." Her exquisite bone structure immediately slipped into a novel - became in fact the secret structure of that novel, besides supporting a number of poems. Vladimir Nabokov
Humbert Humbert: You know, I've missed you terribly. Lolita Haze: I haven't missed you. In fact, I've been revoltingly unfaithful to you. Humbert Humbert: Oh? Lolita Haze: But it doesn't matter a bit, because you've stopped caring anyway. Humbert Humbert: What makes you say I've stopped caring for you? Lolita Haze: Well, you haven't even kissed me yet, have you? Vladimir Nabokov
The road now stretched across open country, and it occured to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer... Vladimir Nabokov
Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader. Vladimir Nabokov
But that mimosa grove - the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since. Vladimir Nabokov
Actually she was at least in her late twenties (I never established her exact age for even her passport lied) and had mislaid her virginity under circumstances that changed with her reminiscent moods. Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov quote: "All my best words are deserters and do not answer the trumpet..."
...All my best words are deserters and do not answer the trumpet call, and the remainder are cripples. Vladimir Nabokov
He suggested I play golf, but finally agreed to give me something that, he said, "would really work"; and going to a cabinet, he produced a vial of violet-blue capsules banded with dark purple at one end, which, he said, had just been placed on the market and were intended not for neurotics whom a draft of water could calm if properly administered, but only for great sleepless artists who had to die for a few hours in order to live for centuries. Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov quote: "No you can't take a pistol and plug a girl you don't even know..."
No you can't take a pistol and plug a girl you don't even know simply because she attracts you. Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov quote: "a person hoping to become a poet must have the capacity of..."
a person hoping to become a poet must have the capacity of thinking of several things at a time. Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov quote: "Our best yesterdays are now foul piles of crumpled names."
Our best yesterdays are now foul piles of crumpled names. Vladimir Nabokov
I am aware of many things being quite as important as good writing and good reading; but in all things it is wiser to go directly to the quiddity, to the text, to the source, to the essence—and only then evolve whatever theories may tempt the philosopher, or the historian, or merely please the spirit of the day. Readers are born free and ought to remain free. Vladimir Nabokov
The days of my youth, as I look back on them; seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation can. Vladimir Nabokov
I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window? Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die. Vladimir Nabokov

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