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Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.

Vladimir Nabokov

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Vladimir Nabokov
Age: 77 †
Born: 1899
Born: January 1
Died: 1977
Died: January 1
Autobiographer
Chess Composer
Chess Player
Journalist
Lepidopterist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
St. Petersburg
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
Vladimir Sirin
Vl. Sirin
Wladimir Nabokoff-Sirin
V. Sirin
Motivational
Existence
Funny
Footnotes
Inspirational
Unfinished
Writing
Masterpiece
Life
Obscure
Vast
Series

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

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If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other. Remind us of Stravinsky. Know the names of plants and flying creatures. Hunt gauzy wings with snares of gauze. Make science pay tribute. Have a butterfly known by your name.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Just like a man grieving because he has recently lost in his dreams some thing that he had never had in reality, or hoping that tomorrow he would dream that he found it again. That is how mathematics is created it has its fatal flaw.
Vladimir Nabokov
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The contemplation of beauty, whether it be a uniquely tinted sunset, a radiant face, or a work of art, makes us glance back unwittingly at our personal past and juxtapose ourselves and our inner being with the utterly unattainable beauty revealed to us.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés.
Vladimir Nabokov
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I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Resemblances are the shadows of differences. Different people see different similarities and similar differences.
Vladimir Nabokov
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The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.
Vladimir Nabokov
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My mind speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear prefers French.
Vladimir Nabokov
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I do not see any essential difference between abstract and primitive art. Both are simple and sincere. Naturally, we should not generalize in these matters: It is the individual artist that counts.
Vladimir Nabokov
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And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to cope with my tears.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only itself to copy.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Our best yesterdays are now foul piles of crumpled names.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Stirless, I stand at the window, and in the black bowl of the sky glows like a golden drop of honey the mellow moon
Vladimir Nabokov
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Although I could never get used to the constant state of anxiety in which the guilty, the great, and the tenderhearted live, I felt I was doing my best in the way of mimicry.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.
Vladimir Nabokov
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...All my best words are deserters and do not answer the trumpet call, and the remainder are cripples.
Vladimir Nabokov
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The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of pale repetitive scraps like those morning snow storms of used tissue paper that a train passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car.
Vladimir Nabokov