Death Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

And what is death, if not a face at peace - its artistic perfection.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Life is a great surprise. I don't see why death should not be an even greater one.

— Vladimir Nabokov

And this is the only immortality you and i may share, my Lolita.

— Vladimir Nabokov

You lose your immortality when you lose your memory.

— Vladimir Nabokov

You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be a greater one.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Death often is the point of life's joke.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“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

“The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life…

— Vladimir Nabokov

A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the…

— Vladimir Nabokov

The compensation for a death sentence is the knowledge of the exact hour when one is to die. A great luxury, but…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“What can be sadder than a discouraged artist dying not from his own commonplace maladies, but from the cancer of oblivion?”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus C. in a whisper.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Death," he had said on another occasion, "seems to be merely a bad habit, which nature is at present powerless to overcome.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“This, to use an American term in which discovery, retribution, torture, death, eternity appear in the shape of a singularly repulsive nutshell,…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“This is, I believe, it: not the crude anguish of physical death but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“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

Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“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

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between…

— Vladimir Nabokov

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

“The shock of her death froze something in me. The child I loved, was gone, but I kept looking for her -…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“You see, we find comfort in telling ourselves that the world could not exist without us, that it exists only inasmuch as…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Perhaps if the year was 1447 instead of 1947 I might have hoodwinked my gentle nature by administering her some classical poison…

— Vladimir Nabokov

I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“That man, especially when he slept, when his features were motionless, showed me my own face, my mask, the flawlessly pure image…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The sky was so heartless and dark, and her body, her head, and particularly those damned thirsty trousers, felt clogged with Oceanus…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The theme of the book is simple: a man is dying: you feel him sinking throughout the book; his thought and his…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The answer to all questions of life and death, "the absolute solution" was written all over the world he had known: it…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“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

“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

“Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or "starlet" Where are you hiding,…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Whenever in my dreams I see the dead, they always appear silent, bothered, strangely depressed, quite unlike their dear, bright selves. I…

— Vladimir Nabokov

And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to…

— Vladimir Nabokov

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between…

— Vladimir Nabokov

There was a time in my demented youth When somehow I suspected that the truth About survival after death was known To…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Unless a film of flesh envelops us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“[...] leaving for a day or two that hopeless sense of loss which makes beauty what it is: a distant lone tree…

— Vladimir Nabokov