Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece” — 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
Burn pedants in pale fire. Accept no fashions. Be your own fashion. Do not rely on earlier triumphs. Be new at each… — 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
“Living does mean accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her case, mere possibilities of improvement.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Oh, don't cry, I'm so sorry I cheated so much, but that's the way things are.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Use unlikely materials. Who would choose Pnin as hero, but how did we live before Pnin? — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“and finally there was the sleepless night when i decided to explore and fight the foul, the inadmissible abyss, devoting all my… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“His mind was a turmoil of words and fancies, incomplete fancies and insufficient words, but already he knew that this and only… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Do not be awed by giant predecessors. Be ill-tempered with their renown. Point out flaws. Frighten interviewers from Time. Appear in Playboy.… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“...memory can restore to life everything except smells, although nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated… — 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 Girl Scout’s motto is also mine. I fill my life with worthwhile deeds such as — well, never mind what. My… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Life is short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
All my life I have been a poor go-to-sleeper. No matter how great my weariness, the wrench of parting with consciousness is… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Direct interference in a person's life does not enter our scope of activity, nor, on the other, tralatitiously speaking, hand, is his… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“He groped for his loafers and walked aimlessly for some time among the trees of the coppice where thrushes were singing so… — 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
“It had lasted no more than four days—four days which were perhaps the happiest days of his life. But now he had… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Life with you was lovely—and when I say lovely, I mean doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink ‘v’ in… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“[T]he forget-me-not gray of an eye squinting at an incipient kiss, the placid expression of your ears when you would lift up… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“We are duplicitous, we're blind- and it is hard to live, trusting only in life: earthly life is a murky translation from… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“Children of her type contrive the purest philosophies. Ada had worked out her own little system. Hardly a week had elapsed since… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“My angel, oh my angel, perhaps our whole earthly existence is now but a pun to you, or a grotesque rhyme, something… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“There is also a keen pleasure (and after all, what else should the pursuit of science produce?) in meeting the riddle of… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“But then I have long since grown accustomed to the thought that what we call dreams is semi-reality, the promise of reality,… — 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
“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
“The act of vividly recalling a patch of the past is something that I seem to have been performing with the utmost… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Age indomitably, in the European manner. Do not finish your labours young. Be a planet, not a meteor. Honor the working day.… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Imagination, the supreme delight of the immortal and the immature, should be limited. In order to enjoy life, we should not enjoy… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Neither in environment nor in heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the a.non.y.muse roller that passed upon my… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
While a few pertinent points have to be marked, the general impression I desire to convey is of a side door crashing… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“His life was a constant war with insensate objects that fell apart, or attacked him, or refused to function, or viciously got… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
“This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure… — 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
And yet I adore him. I think he's quite crazy, and with no place or occupation in life, and far from happy,… — 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
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
“Ami azt illeti, Vannak kezdtek nagyon tetszeni a fák is, a csodák is meg az Adák is.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
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
“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
“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
“It is indeed a tricky name. It is often misspelt, because the eye tends to regard the "a" of the first syllable as a… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
“(T)here exist friendships which develop their own inner duration, their own eons of transparent time.” — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
![“[T]he forget-me-not gray of an eye squinting at an incipient kiss, the placid expression of your ears when you would lift up your hair … how can I reconcile myself to your disappearance, to this gaping hole, into which slides everything—my whole life, wet gravel, objects, and habits—and what…” quote by Vladimir Nabokov](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3c3/vladimir-nabokov-198_life_t-he-forget-me-not-gray-of-an-eye-squint_2679641.jpg)
