“Oh, don't cry, I'm so sorry I cheated so much, but that's the way things are.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Burn pedants in pale fire. Accept no fashions. Be your own fashion. Do not rely on earlier triumphs. Be new at each… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Zembla is a site devoted to the life and works of author, translator, and lepidopterist.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“In life, as in chess, it is always better to analyze one's motives and intentions.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
As to the rest, I am no more guilty of imitating 'real life' than'real life' is responsible for plagiarizing me. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“...memory can restore to life everything except smells, although nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“The Girl Scout’s motto is also mine. I fill my life with worthwhile deeds such as — well, never mind what. My… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I think my favorite fact about myself is that I have never been dismayed by a critic's bilge or bile, and have… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“What surprises you in life? The marvel of consciousness -- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidst the night… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“For life has worn me down: continual uneasiness, concealment of my knowledge, pretense, fear, a painful straining of all my nerves—not to… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“There is titillating pleasure in looking back at the past and asking oneself, 'What would have happened if...' and substituting one chance… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“If I am not master of my life, not sultan of my own being, then no man's logic and no man's ecstatic… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Certainly it’s all in bloom, certainly we’ll go. For aren’t you and I gods? . . . I sense in my blood… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
She had spent all her life in feeling miserable; this misery was her native element; its fluctuations, its varying depths, alone save… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“He groped for his loafers and walked aimlessly for some time among the trees of the coppice where thrushes were singing so… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Direct interference in a person's life does not enter our scope of activity, nor, on the other, tralatitiously speaking, hand, is his… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“My angel, oh my angel, perhaps our whole earthly existence is now but a pun to you, or a grotesque rhyme, something… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Children of her type contrive the purest philosophies. Ada had worked out her own little system. Hardly a week had elapsed since… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“One can distinguish several types of inspiration, which intergrade, as all things do in this fluid and interesting world of ours, while… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“When the soul adores Him Who guides it through mortal life, when it distinguishes His sign at every turn of the trail,… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“But after all we are not children, not illiterate juvenile delinquents, not English public school boys who after a night of homosexual… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
And yet I adore him. I think he's quite crazy, and with no place or occupation in life, and far from happy,… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Neither in environment nor in heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the anonymous roller that pressed upon my… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I am surrounded by some sort of wretched specters, not by people. They torment me as can torment only senseless visions, bad… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“The act of vividly recalling a patch of the past is something that I seem to have been performing with the utmost… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“We are liable to miss the best of life if we do not know how to tingle, if we do not learn… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“His life was a constant war with insensate objects that fell apart, or attacked him, or refused to function, or viciously got… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“...under no circumstances would he [Humbert Humbert] have interfered with the innocence of a child, if there was the least risk of a row.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“Ami azt illeti, Vannak kezdtek nagyon tetszeni a fák is, a csodák is meg az Adák is.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“It isn’t possible. I cannot imagine it. Come on over here, you foolish little doe, and tell me on what day I shall die.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“Precautions to be taken in the case Of freak reincarnation: what to do On suddenly discovering that you Are now a young and vulnerable… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“It is indeed a tricky name. It is often misspelt, because the eye tends to regard the "a" of the first syllable as a… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“(T)here exist friendships which develop their own inner duration, their own eons of transparent time.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
