Quote

Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.

Vladimir Nabokov

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Class
Discuss
Means
Letting
Two
Discussion
Young
Twenty
Mean
Twenties
Something
Neither
Neurotics
College
Blockheads
Teacher
Cocky

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

Image
I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don't really exist if you don't.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
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
Image
Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
I confess, I do not believe in time.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
His wings were failing, but he refused to fall without a struggle.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll, because he was the first Humbert Humbert.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
It was an interesting thing to do. Why did I write any of my books, after all? For the sake of the pleasure, for the sake of the difficulty. I have no social purpose, no moral message I've no general ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
My mind speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear prefers French.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Dostoevky's lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity - all this is difficult to admire.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire. He could not even make himself stretch out his hand to switch on the light. The simple transition from intention to action seemed an unimaginable miracle.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called powerful novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
I don't think in any language. I think in images.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
There was a time in my demented youth When somehow I suspected that the truth About survival after death was known To every human being: I alone Knew nothing, and a great conspiracy Of books and people hid the truth from me.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Life with you was lovely—and when I say lovely, I mean doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink ‘v’ in the middle and the way your tongue curved up to the long, lingering ‘l.’ Our life together was alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die, now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too.
Vladimir Nabokov