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
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
Only talent interests me in paintings and books. Not general ideas, but the individual contribution. — 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
“Fame in our day is too common to be confused with the enduring glow around the deserving book.” — 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
“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
“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
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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“Let at least one word of my writings impregnate the reader's heart.” — 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
“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
“Zembla is a site devoted to the life and works of author, translator, and lepidopterist.” — 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
“The problem lies not with the characters within the novel, but with the reader itself.” — 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
Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both truth and art. — 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
“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
“...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
