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Do those clowns really believe what they teach?

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
Clowns
Clown
Teach
Believe
Really

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My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
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Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
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The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.
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I am not, and never was, and never could have been, a brutal scoundrel.
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I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.
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We hasten to alienate the very fates we intended to woo.
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And yet I adore him. I think he's quite crazy, and with no place or occupation in life, and far from happy, and philosophically irresponsible – and there is absolutely nobody like him.
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My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.
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For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist.
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I confess, I do not believe in time.
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Why should I tolerate a perfect stranger at the bedside of my mind?
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