Quotessence
Home / Authors / Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllWritingArtIfsLoveMindWorldBookMayShouldThinking

Famous Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

“I could also distinguish the glint of a special puddle (the one Krug had somehow perceived through the layer of his own life), an oblong puddle invariably acquiring the same form after every shower because of the constant spatulate shape of a depression in the ground. Possibly something of the kind may be said to occur in regard to the imprint we leave in the intimate texture of space. Twang. A good night for nothing.”

KindMaySaidFormNightSpaceSpecialShapesDepressionRegardConstantIntimateLayersShowersTextureGood NightPuddles
Book:Bend Sinister
Create image

“To a greater or lesser extent there goes on in every person a struggle between two forces: the longing for privacy and the urge to go places: the introversion, interest directed within oneself toward one's own inner life of vigorous thought and fancy; and extroversion, interest directed outward, toward the external world of people and tangible values.”

PeopleWorldPersonsTwoValuesForceInterestStruggleGreaterJourneyGoes OnLongingOneselfFancyPrivacyUrgesTangibleVigorousInner LifeIntroversion
Book:Lectures on Russian Literature
Create image

“When I try to analyze my own cravings, motives, actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective imagination which feeds the analytic faculty with boundless alternatives and which causes each visualized route to fork and re-fork without end in the maddeningly complex prospect of my past.”

TryingEndsActionPastCausesImaginationMy OwnComplexesSurrenderAlternativesMotiveFacultyRoutesCravingBoundlessMy PastForksAnalyticsRetrospective
Book:Lolita
Create image

“My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses–the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions–which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way.”

WayShouldUseBlackNaturalRichConcernTraditionTragedyMirrorsRateTongueFlyingBrandsNativeAbandonHeritageAssociationTailsVelvetImpliedIdiomSecond RateBackdropDocileIllusionists
Book:The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated
Create image

“Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's stomach the separation from Terra-these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known . . . this is the only thing I can say about the matter. The utilitarian results do not interest me.”

I CanMatterFeelingsFormInterestSpaceResultsKnownEventsMoonSeparationSoilSensationsStomachPanicPitsSplendorExplorersStar GazingPebblesTastingMost RomanticTreadingUtilitarian
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
Create image

“It is certainly not then-not in dreams- but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the highest terrace of consciousness, that mortality has a chance to peer beyond its own limits, from the mast, from the past and its castle tower. And although nothing much can be seen through the mist, there is somehow the blissful feeling that one is looking in the right direction.”

MomentsFeelingsDreamTruthPastJoyChanceConsciousnessLimitsAchievementHighestWideAwakeMortalityTowersPeersCastlesMistRight DirectionRobustMastsWide AwakeTerrace
Book:Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited
Create image

“But as Van casually directed the searchlight of backthought into that maze of the past where the mirror-lined narrow paths not only took different turns, but used different levels (as a mule-drawn cart passes under the arch of a viaduct along which a motor skims by), he found himself tackling, in still vague and idle fashion, the science that was to obsess his mature years - problems of space and time, space versus time, time-twisted space, space as time, time as space - and space breaking away from time, in the final tragic triumph of human cogitation: I am because I die.”

YearsHumansStillsDifferentProblemPastUsedDiesTurnsFoundSpaceLevelsPathFashionMirrorsFinalsTriumphTragicMatureIdleVagueVersusTime And SpaceVansTwistedMotorCartsMazesArchesDifferent LevelsMulesTacklingNarrow PathBreaking Away
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
Create image

“Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler pigeon, and sprawl supine on the eiderdown of the air, or lazily turn to embrace your pillow, enjoying every last instant of soft, deep, death-padded life, with the earth's green see-saw now above, now below, and the voluptuous crucifixion, as you stretch yourself in the growing rush, in the nearing swish, and then your loved body's obliteration in the Lap of the Lord.”

FeelsBodyEarthLastsTurnsEnjoyLordSawsGrowingAirGreenEmbraceInstantLapPillowSuspendedCrucifixionPigeonsSlow MotionVoluptuous
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
Create image

“Whatever his secret was, I have learnt one secret too, and namely: that the soul is but a manner of being - not a constant state - that any soul may be yours, if you find and follow its undulations. The hereafter may be the full ability of consciously living in any chosen soul, in any number of souls, all of them unconscious of their interchangeable burden.”

IfsMaySoulStatesAbilityNumbersSecretConstantBurdenChosenUnconsciousHereafter
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
Create image

“I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.... My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French. At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts.... In these circumstances nobody should ask me to submit to an interview if by "interview" a chat between two normal human beings is implied.”

PeopleIfsThinkingShouldWritingHumansChildrenLongTwoStoriesAsksSpeakCausesHuman BeingsPartyGeniusCircumstancesNormalAnxietyDistanceSentencesAsk MeInterviewsNativeSubmitTelephonesPatheticDistinguishedGood StoryLong DistanceImpliedSocial AnxietyInsert
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
Create image

“And really, the reason we think of death in celestial terms is that the visible firmament, especially at night (above our blacked-out Paris with the gaunt arches of its Boulevard Exelmans and the ceaseless Alpine gurgle of desolate latrines), is the most adequate and ever-present symbol of that vast silent explosion.”

ThinkingReasonDeathNightTermSilentSymbolsParisVisibleAdequateExplosionsCelestialArchesDesolateFirmamentBoulevardAlpine
Book:The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
Create image