Vladimir NabokovWe hasten to alienate the very fates we intended to woo. ✨ Vladimir Nabokov (2011). The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated, p.117, Vintage371Time
Vladimir NabokovBetween the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not hum… ▶371HumanityTimeTruth
Vladimir NabokovHave you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as it does in parting with dear objects. The humid gaze does… ▶362DeathLifeLove
Vladimir NabokovIn and out of my heart flowed my rainbow blood. ✨ Vladimir Nabokov (2016). Lolita, p.69, Hamilton Books351LoveReading
Vladimir NabokovThat swimming, sloping, elusive something about the dark-bluish tint of the iris which seemed still to retain the shadows it had absorbed of ancient, fabulous forests where there … ▶373Thought
Vladimir NabokovWas she really beautiful? Was she at least what they call attractive? She was exasperation, she was torture. ✨ Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1996). Novels, 1969-1974373Reading
Vladimir NabokovExistence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece. ✨ Pale Fire Commentary (1962)341Life
Vladimir NabokovAlthough we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanit… ▶374HumanityReadingThought
Vladimir NabokovAll the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born. ✨ Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1996). Nov… ▶374DeathReading
Vladimir NabokovHappy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh… ▶342LoveReading
Vladimir NabokovIf he failed the first time he took his driver's licence test, it was mainly because he started an argument with the examiner in an ill-timed effort to prove that nothing could be… ▶364Time
Vladimir NabokovTheoretically there is no absolute proof that one's awakening in the morning (the finding oneself again in the saddle of one's personality) is not really a quite unprecedented eve… ▶375Sadness
Vladimir NabokovA thousand years ago five minutes were Equal to forty ounces of fine sand. Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and Infinite aftertime: above your head They close like giant wing… ▶375DeathTime
Vladimir NabokovHumbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for. ✨ Vladimir Nabokov (2016). Lolita, p.9, Hamilton Books375Reading
Vladimir NabokovThere is no science without fancy and no art without fact. ✨ Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1973). Strong opinions, McGraw-Hill Companies331Truth
Vladimir NabokovMy very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the h… ▶343DeathReadingTime
Vladimir NabokovI know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more. ✨ Vladimir Nabokov (2012). Man From The USSR & Oth… ▶343Politics
Vladimir NabokovLolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. ✨ Lolita pt. 1, ch. 1 (1955)343Life
Vladimir NabokovDiscussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know. ✨ Vladimir Nabokov (2011… ▶344Reflection
Vladimir NabokovI was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the windowpane; I was the smudge of ashen fluff -and I Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky. And from the inside, to… ▶311PoliticsReflectionSadness
Vladimir NabokovWhile a few pertinent points have to be marked, the general impression I desire to convey is of a side door crashing open in life's full flight, and a rush of roaring black time d… ▶322LifeReadingSadness
Vladimir Nabokovif a violin string could ache, i would be that string.333Politics
Vladimir NabokovI see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window.… Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.344Death
Vladimir Nabokov...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life.… ▶344LifeSadnessTime
Vladimir NabokovLife is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses.366Life
Vladimir NabokovWords without experience are meaningless. ✨ Vladimir Nabokov (2011). The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated, p.255, Vintage344LifePhilosophy
Vladimir NabokovI have never seen a more lucid, more lonely, better balanced mad mind than mine. ✨ Strong opinions.323Thought
Vladimir NabokovA writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.323Love
Vladimir NabokovMy Carmen, I said (I used to call her that sometimes) we shall leave this raw sore town as soon as you get out of bed. ... Because, really, I continued, there is no point in stayi… ▶323ReadingTime
Vladimir NabokovAnd what is death, if not a face at peace - its artistic perfection.334Death
