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Famous Vladimir Nabokov Quotes
“Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.”
“I don't think in any language. I think in images.”
“Beauty plus pity -- that is the closest we can get to a definition of art.”
“Art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex.”
“Her lips were like large crimson polyps.”
“I have the European urge to use my feet when a drive can be dispensed with.”
“Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark.”
“Those Eggheadsareterrible Philistines. A realgood head is not oval but round.”
“The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.”
“Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.”
“Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.”
“My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.”
“I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.”
“A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.”
“Genius is an African who dreams up snow.”
“Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution.”
“Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.”
“A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.”
“I confess, I do not believe in time.”
“I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.”
“Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.”
“Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.”