Vladimir Nabokov

“How much happier the wide-awake indolents, the monarchs among men, the rich monstrous brains deriving intense enjoyment and rapturous pangs from the…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“There is nothing louder than an American hotel; and, mind you, this was supposed to be a quiet, cozy, old-fashioned, homey place…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“She considered me as if grasping all at once the incredible -- and somehow tedious, confusing and unnecessary -- fact that the…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“We have imagined that a white hospital train with a white Diesel engine has taken you through many a tunnel to a…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“She is a great gobbler of books, but reads only trash, memorizing nothing and leaving out the longer descriptions.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

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

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“I am not concerned with the moron, the ordinary hairless ape, who takes everything in his stride; his only childhood memory is…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Las regiones apacibles y vagas en que me movía eran patrimonio de los poetas, no el terreno del crimen”

— Vladimir Nabokov

IN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION: WHAT SCENES ONE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE FILMED Shakespeare in the part of the King's Ghost. The…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Eystein had also resorted to a weird form of trickery: among his decorations of wood or wool, gold or velvet, he would…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“– Tudod, a halálban az a legrettenetesebb, hogy az ember olyan tökéletesen magára marad.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Great novels are above all great fairy tales . . . literature does not tell the truth but makes it up.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet Age: five thousand three hundred days.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“The idea of God was invented in the small hours of history by a scam who had genius; it somehow reeks too…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Ideas in modern Russia are machine-cut blocks coming in solid colors; the nuance is outlawed, the interval walled up, the curve grossly…

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Actually he was a pessimist, and, like all pessimists, a ridiculously unobservant man.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

“...the poison was in the wound, and the wound remained ever open..”

— Vladimir Nabokov

I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.

— Vladimir Nabokov

“Tenderness rounds out true triumph, gentleness lubricates genuine liberation: emotions that are not diagnostic of glory or passion in dreams.”

— Vladimir Nabokov

I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze I cannot get out, said the starling

— Vladimir Nabokov

I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist.

— Vladimir Nabokov

A thousand years ago five minutes were Equal to forty ounces of fine sand. Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and Infinite aftertime:…

— Vladimir Nabokov

Maybe the only thing that hints at a sense of Time is rhythm; not the recurrent beats of the rhythm but the…

— 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