Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
…She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or bridge club, or any other deadly… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Great novels are above all great fairy tales . . . literature does not tell the truth but makes it up.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“If you want to make a movie out of my book, have one of these faces gently melt into my own, while… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Fame in our day is too common to be confused with the enduring glow around the deserving book.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“...I happen to be the kind of author who in starting to work on a book has no purpose than to get… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
There was a time in my demented youth When somehow I suspected that the truth About survival after death was known To… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Even while writing his book, he had become painfully aware how little he knew his own planet while attempting to piece together… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
It was an interesting thing to do. Why did I write any of my books, after all? For the sake of the… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“I will never go back. For the simple reason that all the Russia I need, after all, is with me--always with me.… — 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
“No, I have as yet said nothing, or, rather, said only bookish words... and in the end the logical thing would be… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“A first-rate college library with a comfortable campus around it is a fine milieu for a writer. There is, of course, the… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
After the first shock of recognition - a sudden sense of "this is what I'm going to write" - the novel starts… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Have you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I do not begin my novel at the beginning, I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four, I do… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Many accepted authors simply do not exist for me. Their names are engraved on empty graves, their books are dummies, they are… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“The theme of the book is simple: a man is dying: you feel him sinking throughout the book; his thought and his… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“There are gentle souls who would pronounce Lolita meaningless because it does not teach them anything. I am neither a reader nor… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“In reading, one should notice and fondle details. There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Drug addicts, especially young ones, are conformists flocking together in sticky groups, and I do not write for groups, nor approve of… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Speaking of novels,’ I said, ‘you remember we decided once, you, your husband and I, that Proust’s rough masterpiece was a huge,… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“It is interesting to ponder the fact that there is no real difference between what the Western Fascists wanted of literature and… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Between the ages of ten and fifteen in St. Petersburg, I must have read more fiction and poetry—English, Russian and French—than in… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“I will not mention the name (and what bits of it I happen to give here appear in decorous disguise) of that… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“The problem lies not with the characters within the novel, but with the reader itself.” — 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
The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Between the wolf in the tall grass and the wolf in the tall story there is a shimmering go-between. That go-between, that… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“the good reader is one who has imagination, memory, a dictionary, and some artistic sense–-” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain information about a country or about a social class… — 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
![“I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. [...] Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we…” quote by Vladimir Nabokov](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b66/vladimir-nabokov-198_books_i-have-often-noticed-that-we-are-incline_463200.jpg)
![“...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)
