Time Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past.

— Vladimir Nabokov

I confess, I do not believe in time.

— Vladimir Nabokov

One is always at home in one's past...

— Vladimir Nabokov

The future is but the obsolete in reverse.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“anyone can create the future but only a wise man can create the past”

— Vladimir Nabokov

a person hoping to become a poet must have the capacity of thinking of several things at a time.

— Vladimir Nabokov

while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of…

— Vladimir Nabokov

The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Memory overshadows the present and dims the future "into something thicker than its usual pea soup."

— Vladimir Nabokov

Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“...there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it...”

— Vladimir Nabokov

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“How can I demonstrate [...] that I have glimpsed somebody's future recollection?”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The few times I said to myself anywhere: ‘Now that’s a nice spot for a permanent home,’ I would immediately hear in…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I often felt we lived in a lighted house of glass, and that any moment some thin-lipped parchment face would peer through…

— Vladimir Nabokov

A philistine is a full-grown person whose interests are of a material and commonplace nature, and whose mentality is formed of the…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Any future is unknown – but sometimes it acquires a particular fogginess, as if some other force had come to the aid…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Ganin now tried to recapture that scent again, mixed with the fresh smells of the autumnal park, but, as we know, memory…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Time is rhythm: the insect rhythm of a warm humid night, brain ripple, breathing, the drum in my temple—these are our faithful…

— Vladimir Nabokov

I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“We live in a stocking which is in the process of being turned inside out, without our ever knowing for sure to…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Do all people have that? A face, a phrase, a landscape, an air bubble from the past suddenly floating up as if…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I think that here lies the sense of literary creation: to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The sense of literary creation is to portray ordinary objects as they will be reflected in the kindly mirrors of future times;…

— Vladimir Nabokov

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

“The recollection also came back empty, and for the first time in all his life, perhaps, Luzhin asked himself the question –…

— Vladimir Nabokov

My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“A moment later I heard my sweetheart running up the stairs. My heart expanded with such force that it almost blotted me…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Vivian Bloodmark, a philosophical friend of mine, in later years, used to say that while the scientist sees everything that happens in…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her –after fabulous, insane…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The color of one's creed, neckties, eyes, thoughts, manners, speech, is sure to meet somewhere in time of space with a fatal…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Van sealed the letter, found his Thunderbolt pistol in the place he had visualized, introduced one cartridge into the magazine, and translated…

— Vladimir Nabokov

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

“There, tam, la-bas, the gaze of men glows with inimitable understanding; there the freaks that are tortured here walk unmolested; there time…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“... one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The hoary judge put his mouth close to his ear, panted for a moment, made the announcement and slowly moved away, as…

— 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

“(T)here exist friendships which develop their own inner duration, their own eons of transparent time.”

— Vladimir Nabokov