Books Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

“...the book like a sleigh left my lap...”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“All great novels are great fairy tales.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

An active and creative reader is a re-reader.

— Vladimir Nabokov

No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“to play a solitary game of chequers, to read, to write – what should I do?”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Let at least one word of my writings impregnate the reader's heart.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

Readers are not sheep, and not every pen tempts them.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.

— Vladimir Nabokov

A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine.…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“In its published form, this book is being read, I assume, in the first years of 2000 A.D. (1935 plus eighty or…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“ Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

To begin with, let us take the following motto...Literature is Love. Now we can continue.

— Vladimir Nabokov

I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright world of illustrated books, clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Oh, do not scowl at me, reader, I do not intend to convey the impression that I did not manage to be…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Of all my Russian books, the defense contains and diffuses the greatest 'warmth' which may seem odd seeing how supremely abstract Chess…

— Vladimir Nabokov

…She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or bridge club, or any other deadly…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoievsky as much as Americans do, and that most of…

— Vladimir Nabokov

At a very early stage of the novel's development I get this urge to collect bits of straw and fluff, and to…

— Vladimir Nabokov

After the dreadful frustrationsFreudians have experienced with my other books, I am sure they will refrain from inflicting upon Waltz a sublimation…

— Vladimir Nabokov

When I receive a new novel from a hopeful publisher - "hoping that I like the book as much as he does"…

— Vladimir Nabokov

The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that "offensive" is frequently…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Usually I read several books at a time - old books, new books, fiction, nonfiction, verse, anything - and when the bedside…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The pale organisms of literary heroes feeding under the author's supervision swell gradually with the reader's lifeblood; so that the genius of…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“But after all we are not children, not illiterate juvenile delinquents, not English public school boys who after a night of homosexual…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I am aware of many things being quite as important as good writing and good reading; but in all things it is…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only been defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely,…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Literature under despotism: “The personality of the artist should develop freely and without restraint. One thing, however, we demand: acknowledgement of our…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Uncle alone in the house with the children said he'd dress up to amuse them. After a long wait, as he did…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“This irritated or puzzled such students of literature and their professors as were accustomed to ‘serious’ courses replete with ‘trends ’ and…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“My knowledge of Mr. Forster’s works is limited to one novel which I dislike; and anyway it was not he who fathered…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“When, on a Sunday evening in May 1876, Anna throws herself under the freight train, she has existed more than four years…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Cynthia had been on friendly terms with an eccentric librarian called Porlock who in the last years of his dusty life had…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Just as the universal family of gifted writers transcends national barriers, so is the gifted reader a universal figure, not subject to…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“There exist few things more tedious than a discussion of general ideas inflicted by author or reader upon a work of fiction.…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Before his and Pushkin's advent Russian literature was purblind. What form it perceived was an outline directed by reason: it did not…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“One evening at a remote provincial college through which I happened to be jogging on a protracted lecture tour, I suggested a…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“In this course I have tried to reveal the mechanism of those wonderful toys — literary masterpieces. I have tried to make…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Ever since the days when such formidable mediocrities as Galsworthy, Dreiser, Tagore, Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland and Thomas Mann were being accepted…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“There are gentle souls who would pronounce Lolita meaningless because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a reader nor…

— Vladimir Nabokov