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Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words.
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
Perceived
Irrational
Involves
Rational
Mystery
Poetry
Words
Reason
Mysteries
More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world. In order to do this adequately, avoiding duplication of labor, the artist should know the given world.
Vladimir Nabokov
Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.
Vladimir Nabokov
A 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 wings, and you are dead.
Vladimir Nabokov
You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.
Vladimir Nabokov
I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of which I have the right to deny.
Vladimir Nabokov
Solitude is the playfield of Satan.
Vladimir Nabokov
You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.
Vladimir Nabokov
Perhaps if the future existed, concretely and individually, as something that could be discerned by a better brain, the past would not be so seductive: its demands would be balanced by those of the future.
Vladimir Nabokov
I am not, and never was, and never could have been, a brutal scoundrel.
Vladimir Nabokov
Of all my Russian books, the defense contains and diffuses the greatest 'warmth' which may seem odd seeing how supremely abstract Chess is supposed to be
Vladimir Nabokov
We hasten to alienate the very fates we intended to woo.
Vladimir Nabokov
He broke my heart. You merely broke my life.
Vladimir Nabokov
And yet I am happy. Yes, happy. I swear. I swear that I am happy...What does it matter that I am a bit cheap, a bit foul, and that no one appreciates all the remarkable things about me-my fantasy, my erudition, my literary gift...I am happy that I can gaze at myself, for any man is absorbing-yes, really absorbing! ... I am happy-yes, happy!
Vladimir Nabokov
All great novels are great fairy tales.
Vladimir Nabokov
We think not in words but in shadows of words.
Vladimir Nabokov
The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.
Vladimir Nabokov
And really, the reason we think of death in celestial terms is that the visible firmament, especially at night (above our blacked-out Paris with the gaunt arches of its Boulevard Exelmans and the ceaseless Alpine gurgle of desolate latrines), is the most adequate and ever-present symbol of that vast silent explosion.
Vladimir Nabokov
Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.
Vladimir Nabokov
Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.
Vladimir Nabokov
Adultery is a most conventional way to rise above the conventional.
Vladimir Nabokov
