Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only itself to copy. — 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
I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
...and the red sun of desire and decision (the two things that create a live world) rose higher and higher, while upon… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
When I try to analyze my own cravings, motives, actions and so forth, I surrender to a sort of retrospective imagination which… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
I witness with pleasure the supreme achievement of memory, which is the masterly use it makes of innate harmonies when gathering to… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
The contemplation of beauty, whether it be a uniquely tinted sunset, a radiant face, or a work of art, makes us glance… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
It is certainly not then-not in dreams- but when one is wide awake, at moments of robust joy and achievement, on the… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
No writer in a free country should be expected to bother about the exact demarcation between the sensuous and the sensual; this is preposterous; I can only admire but cannot emulate the accuracy of judgment of those who pose the fair young mammals photographed in magazines where the general neckline is just low enough to provoke a past master's chuckle… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share
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
But as Van casually directed the searchlight of backthought into that maze of the past where the mirror-lined narrow paths not only… — 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 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
