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Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

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Famous Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

“After the first shock of recognition - a sudden sense of "this is what I'm going to write" - the novel starts to breed by itself; the process goes on solely in the mind, not on paper. I feel a kind of gentle development, an uncurling inside, and I know that the details are there already, that in fact I would see them plainly if I looked closer, but I prefer to wait until what is loosely called inspiration has completed the task for me.”

IfsKnowsFeelsWritingMindFirstsKindFactsInspirationWaitingProcessNovelGoes OnDevelopmentPaperTasksDetailsRecognitionGentleShock
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
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“If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other. Remind us of Stravinsky. Know the names of plants and flying creatures. Hunt gauzy wings with snares of gauze. Make science pay tribute. Have a butterfly known by your name.”

IfsKnowsLifeCountryPlayNamesLanguagePayKnownCreaturesWingsPlantActiveChessFlyingMetalsButterflyHuntsTributeTradersSnaresStravinskyPrecious Metal
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
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“I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless a film of flesh envelopes us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space-traveler's helmet. Stay inside or you perish. Death is divestment, death is communion. It may be wonderful to mix with the landscape, but to do so is the end of the tender ego.”

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Author:Vladimir Nabokov
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“- Might it console you to know that I expect nothing but torture from her return? That I regard you as a bird of paradise? She shook her head. - That my admiration for you is painfully strong? - I want Van – she cried – and not intangible admiration. - Intangible? You goose. You my gauge it, you may brush it once very lightly with the knuckles of you gloved hand. I said knuckles. I said once. That will do. I can't kiss you. Not even your burning face. Good-bye, pet. Tell Edmond to take a nap after he returns. I shall need him at two in the morning.”

KnowsWantNeedsMaySaidI CanTwoHandsMightFacesStrongMorningReturnKissingBirdRegardBurningTortureParadisePetAdmirationCriedBrushesVansByeGeeseNapsGood ByeConsoleIntangibleGaugesKnucklesExpect Nothing
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
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“My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.”

IfsKnowsWritingStillsPastMotherThreeMemoriesSunStyleSummerDiedBottomAccidentsGoldenObservationHillsPocketsWarmthFreakLightningInfancyDuskSuspendedPicnicsRemnantsMother DiedFurryDellPhotogenicMidges
Book:Lolita
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“I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago - but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man's child. She could fade and wither - I didn't care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.”

KnowsMenChildrenLongStillsBigsCareEarthFacesDiesSightMadMereFadesTendernessPaleLong AgoEchoesLeafsAnother Man
Author:Vladimir Nabokov
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“My Lolita remarked: "You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own"; and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling's mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile cliches, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate - dim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsions.”

KnowsMindBehindsHappenedDyingGardenAwfulMiserableKneesRegionsGatesTwilightForbiddenUp And DownPalacesDarlingClicheRagsAdorableJuvenile
Book:The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated
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