Identity Quote by Stacy Schiff

“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

“His (Lenin's)humanitarianism was a very abstract passion. It embraced humanity in general but he seems to have had little love for, or even interest…

— Paul Johnson

“as might a dung beetle stripped of its exoskeleton. Having set out to change the world and rule it through mass murder and slavery,…

— Dean Koontz

“He was a mostly mild man with a weakness for passion, a suburban father burdened with the heart of a Russian hero without any…

— Suzanne Berne

“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

“His unrivaled genius as an ideological novelist was this capacity to invent actions and situations in which ideas dominate behavior without the latter becoming…

— Joseph Frank

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

His contempt for humanity grew fiercer, and at last he came to realize that the world is made up mostly of fools and scoundrels.…

— Joris-Karl Huysmans

The student who deceives himself into thinking that he is giving his life like an ascetic in the spirit of sacrifice for art, is…

— Alma Gluck

“The evils of envy and hatred masquerading as humanitarian idealism had darkened his life from its outset, stamping him as a man quick to…

— Theodore Dalrymple

“what might have looked like courage proved to be a deficit of common sense and an excess of self-importance, too strong a faith in…

— Dean Koontz

“He sat there among them, listened to the buzz of their conversation. He was captivated by them. In that racket every voice touched a…

— Deszö Kosztolányi