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Devices which in some curious new way imitate nature are attractive to simple minds.

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
Nature
Mind
Way
Imitate
Devices
Attractive
Curious
Minds
Simple

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The summer night was starless and stirless, with distant spasms of silent lightning.
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if a violin string could ache, i would be that string.
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You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.
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The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.
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while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time.
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Genius still means to me, in my Russian fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The gift of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.
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My own ultraviolet darling. Lolita
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An active and creative reader is a re-reader.
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Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!
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Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only itself to copy.
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A cluster of stars palely glowed above us, between the silhouettes of long thin leaves that vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock. I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own.
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Measure me while I live - after it will be too late.
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A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.
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I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/By the false azure in the windowpane.
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It is strange how a memory will grow into a wax figure, how the cherub grows suspiciously prettier as its frame darkens with age-strange, strange are the mishaps of memory.
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