Vladimir Nabokov: Trending quotes

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Vladimir Nabokov: 386 quotes232 likes

“…(hot, opalescent, thick tears that poets and lovers shed)…”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“Everything in the world is beautiful, but Man only recognizes beauty if he sees it either seldom or from afar. Listen, today we are gods! Our blue shadows are enormous! We move in a gigantic, joyful world!”

Vladimir Nabokov book The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

Source: The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

“Because you took advantage of my disadvantage.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“One is always at home in one's past…”

Vladimir Nabokov book Speak, Memory

Source: Speak, Memory

“We are most artistically caged.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

“Ink, a Drug.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Bend Sinister

Source: Bend Sinister

“She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.”

Vladimir Nabokov

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”

Vladimir Nabokov

Speak, Memory: A Memoir (1951)
Context: The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour).

“My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Strong Opinions

"Foreword", p. 3.
Source: Strong Opinions (1973)

“You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle…”

Vladimir Nabokov

“if a violin string could ache, i would be that string.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“All colors made me happy: even gray.
My eyes were such that literally they
Took photographs.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire