Life Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

“Let all of life be an unfettered howl.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I felt my life needed a shake-up.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“In order to enjoy life, we should not enjoy it too much.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Death often is the point of life's joke.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“You have to be an artist and a madman...”

— Vladimir Nabokov

Life is a message scribbled in the dark.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“But even during this sleep—still, still—his real life showed through too much.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“If there is anything of which I am certain in life it is that I shall never exchange the liberty of my…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Life is a great surprise. I don't see why death should not be an even greater one.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Burn pedants in pale fire. Accept no fashions. Be your own fashion. Do not rely on earlier triumphs. Be new at each…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Zembla is a site devoted to the life and works of author, translator, and lepidopterist.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Living does mean accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her case, mere possibilities of improvement.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Do not be awed by giant predecessors. Be ill-tempered with their renown. Point out flaws. Frighten interviewers from Time. Appear in Playboy.…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“...memory can restore to life everything except smells, although nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated…

— Vladimir Nabokov

All my life I have been a poor go-to-sleeper. No matter how great my weariness, the wrench of parting with consciousness is…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The Girl Scout’s motto is also mine. I fill my life with worthwhile deeds such as — well, never mind what. My…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Life is short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Ganin now tried to recapture that scent again, mixed with the fresh smells of the autumnal park, but, as we know, memory…

— Vladimir Nabokov

...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“That human life is but a first installment of the serial soul and that one's individual secret is not lost in the…

— Vladimir Nabokov

I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The sense of literary creation is to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times;…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The recollection also came back empty, and for the first time in all his life, perhaps, Luzhin asked himself the question –…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“If only it were possible to juicily belch up the life one's lived, chew it anew and gulp it down, and then…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I think that here lies the sense of literary creation: to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“He must be always on his guard and devote every minute and module of life to the decoding of the undulation of…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“As happens in dreams, when a perfectly harmless object inspires us with fear and thereafter is frightening every time we dream of…

— 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

“The answer to all questions of life and death, "the absolute solution" was written all over the world he had known: it…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I remember a cartoon depicting a chimney sweep falling from the roof of a tall building and noticing on the way that…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Children of her type contrive the purest philosophies. Ada had worked out her own little system. Hardly a week had elapsed since…

— Vladimir Nabokov