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I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright world of illustrated books, clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and smiling faces.

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
Child
Trees
Illustrated
Faces
Dog
Vistas
Happy
Sea
Smiling
Book
Clean
Orange
Children
Healthy
Dogs
World
Tree
Sand
Grew
Friendly
Books
Bright

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

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Age indomitably, in the European manner. Do not finish your labours young. Be a planet, not a meteor. Honor the working day. Sit at your desk.
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The square root of I is I.
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His wings were failing, but he refused to fall without a struggle.
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But in my arms she was always Lolita.
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Alas! In vain historians pry and probe: The same wind blows, and in the same live robe Truth bends her head to fingers curved cupwise And with a woman's smile and a child's care Examines something she is holding there Concealed by her own shoulder from our eyes.
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The sun is a thief: she lures the sea and robs it. The moon is a thief: he steals his silvery light from the sun. The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.
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It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
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Maybe the only thing that hints at a sense of Time is rhythm not the recurrent beats of the rhythm but the gap between two such beats, the gray gap between black beats: the Tender Interval.
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A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual, and only the individual reader is important to me. I don't give a damn for the group, the community, the masses, and so forth.
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What surprises you in life? The marvel of consciousness -- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidts the night of non-being.
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My mind speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear prefers French.
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I don't want an elderly gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella inflicting his dreams upon me.
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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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But that mimosa grove-the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since-until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
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Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.
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Only one letter divides the comic from the cosmic.
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I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.
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She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her.
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When I receive a new novel from a hopeful publisher - hoping that I like the book as much as he does - I check first of all how much dialog there is, and if it looks too abundant or too sustained, I shut the book with a bang.
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He was afraid of touching his own wrist. He never attempted to sleep on his left side, even in those dismal hours of the night when the insomniac longs for a third side after trying the two he has.
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