xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023

Favourite quotes (21448)

“I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get drunk, go to church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Strong Opinions

Source: Strong Opinions (1973), p. 18.

“I don't think in any language. I think in images.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Strong Opinions

From a BBC Interview (1962), p. 14.
Strong Opinions (1973)
Context: I don't think in any language. I think in images. I don't believe that people think in languages. They don't move their lips when they think. It is only a certain type of illiterate person who moves his lips as he reads or ruminates. No, I think in images, and now and then a Russian phrase or an English phrase will form with the foam of the brainwave, but that’s about all.

“Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“Words without experience are meaningless.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don't really exist if you don't.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Variant: Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.
Source: Lolita

“He broke my heart. You merely broke my life.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream, exhale, release life's rapture.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

“All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

“We can at last describe his tie, an Easter gift from a dressy butcher, his brother in law in Onhava: imitation silk, colour chocolate brown barred with red, the end tucked into the shirt between the second and third buttons - a Zemblan fashion of the nineteen thirties.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Pale Fire (1962)

“The lost glove is happy.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

“My Carmen," I said (I used to call her that sometimes) "we shall leave this raw sore town as soon as you get out of bed."
"… Because, really," I continued, "there is no point in staying here."
"There is no point in staying anywhere," said Lolita.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“Theoretically there is no absolute proof that one's awakening in the morning (the finding oneself again in the saddle of one's personality) is not really a quite unprecedented event, a perfectly original birth.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Bend Sinister

Source: Bend Sinister

“A thousand years ago five minutes were
Equal to forty ounces of fine sand.
Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and
Infinite aftertime: above your head
They close like giant wings, and you are dead.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire