Common Quote by Martin Amis

What did Nabokov and Joyce have in common, apart from the poor teeth and the great prose? Exile, and decades of near pauperism.

— Martin Amis

Of course, both [Oscar] Wilde & [Vladimir] Nabokov believe in many things, and these things emerge in their writing clearly - for Wilde, the…

— Joyce Carol Oates

Of all the writers I have read, Vladimir Nabokov has made the biggest impression on me because he, despite living through the 1917 February…

— Ashwin Sanghi

To live with the work and the letters of James Joyce was an enormous privilege and a daunting education. Yes, I came to admire…

— Edna O'Brien

Nabokov, who I loved more than any other writer when I was young, had such contempt for dialogue. When I was younger, I never…

— Zadie Smith

“She did not believe Fate as painstaking as her husband; she was more inclined to take matters into her own hands. She had ample…

— Stacy Schiff

“I realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, in control of one's material. He was…

— Samuel Beckett

Many authors write like amateur blacksmiths making their first horseshoe; the clank of the anvil, the stench of the scorched leather apron, the sparks…

— Robertson Davies

I believe novels can have secrets from their author, a notion I imagine would appall Nabokov.

— Steve Erickson

“Nabokov complained he was afflicted with total recall, an affliction of which he could be miraculously cured by the presence of a biographer.”

— Stacy Schiff

Nabokov's adventures in language and style and naked braininess are really unparalleled.

— Lorrie Moore

Vladimir Nabokov was a writer who cared nothing for music and whose favorite sport was the pursuit, capture, and murder of butterflies. This explains…

— Edward Abbey