Life is a great surprise. I don't see why death should not be an even greater one. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be a greater one.” — 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
You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life… — 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
And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
The compensation for a death sentence is the knowledge of the exact hour when one is to die. A great luxury, but… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Death," he had said on another occasion, "seems to be merely a bad habit, which nature is at present powerless to overcome.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“What can be sadder than a discouraged artist dying not from his own commonplace maladies, but from the cancer of oblivion?” — 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
“Aunt Rosa, a fussy, angular, wild-eyed old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“This is, I believe, it: not the crude anguish of physical death but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Beaming and melting in smiles of benevolence and self-effacement, they sidled up and plumped down next to Lucette, who turned to them… — 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
“You see, we find comfort in telling ourselves that the world could not exist without us, that it exists only inasmuch as… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“[...] leaving for a day or two that hopeless sense of loss which makes beauty what it is: a distant lone tree… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Perhaps if the year was 1447 instead of 1947 I might have hoodwinked my gentle nature by administering her some classical poison… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“The sky was so heartless and dark, and her body, her head, and particularly those damned thirsty trousers, felt clogged with Oceanus… — 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
“That man, especially when he slept, when his features were motionless, showed me my own face, my mask, the flawlessly pure image… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“The answer to all questions of life and death, "the absolute solution" was written all over the world he had known: it… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“I got out of the car and slammed its door. How matter-of-fact, how square that slam sounded in the void of the… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or "starlet" Where are you hiding,… — 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
“I also know that the shock of Annabel's death consolidated the frustration of that nightmare summer, made of it a permanent obstacle… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Unless a film of flesh envelops us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
And really, the reason we think of death in celestial terms is that the visible firmament, especially at night (above our blacked-out… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
And what is death, if not a face at peace - its artistic perfection. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus C. in a whisper.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Dying, dying, Lolita Haze, Of hate and remorse I’m dying. And again my hairy fist I raise, And again I hear you… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“This, to use an American term in which discovery, retribution, torture, death, eternity appear in the shape of a singularly repulsive nutshell,… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“The shock of her death froze something in me. The child I loved, was gone, but I kept looking for her -… — 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