No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“to play a solitary game of chequers, to read, to write – what should I do?” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Let at least one word of my writings impregnate the reader's heart.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine.… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
To begin with, let us take the following motto...Literature is Love. Now we can continue. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“ Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
Of all my Russian books, the defense contains and diffuses the greatest 'warmth' which may seem odd seeing how supremely abstract Chess… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Oh, do not scowl at me, reader, I do not intend to convey the impression that I did not manage to be… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright world of illustrated books, clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“She is a great gobbler of books, but reads only trash, memorizing nothing and leaving out the longer descriptions.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
After the dreadful frustrationsFreudians have experienced with my other books, I am sure they will refrain from inflicting upon Waltz a sublimation… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that "offensive" is frequently… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
When I receive a new novel from a hopeful publisher - "hoping that I like the book as much as he does"… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Usually I read several books at a time - old books, new books, fiction, nonfiction, verse, anything - and when the bedside… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“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 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
“I am aware of many things being quite as important as good writing and good reading; but in all things it is… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only been defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely,… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“Literature under despotism: “The personality of the artist should develop freely and without restraint. One thing, however, we demand: acknowledgement of our… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“This irritated or puzzled such students of literature and their professors as were accustomed to ‘serious’ courses replete with ‘trends ’ and… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“When, on a Sunday evening in May 1876, Anna throws herself under the freight train, she has existed more than four years… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“Cynthia had been on friendly terms with an eccentric librarian called Porlock who in the last years of his dusty life had… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Just as the universal family of gifted writers transcends national barriers, so is the gifted reader a universal figure, not subject to… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“There exist few things more tedious than a discussion of general ideas inflicted by author or reader upon a work of fiction.… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“One evening at a remote provincial college through which I happened to be jogging on a protracted lecture tour, I suggested a… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
“In this course I have tried to reveal the mechanism of those wonderful toys — literary masterpieces. I have tried to make… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Ever since the days when such formidable mediocrities as Galsworthy, Dreiser, Tagore, Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland and Thomas Mann were being accepted… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“... one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader… — 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 Image
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 Image
“Ami azt illeti, Vannak kezdtek nagyon tetszeni a fák is, a csodák is meg az Adák is.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 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.” quote by Vladimir Nabokov](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/0f0/vladimir-nabokov-198_children_under-no-circumstances-would-he-humbert_16228.jpg)
