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We hasten to alienate the very fates we intended to woo.

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
Alienate
Hasten
Fates
Intended
Fate

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I confess, I do not believe in time.
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The summer night was starless and stirless, with distant spasms of silent lightning.
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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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My mind speaks English, my heart speaks Russian, and my ear prefers French.
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Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution.
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Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés.
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Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space-traveler's helmet. Stay inside or you perish.
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Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.
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I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/By the false azure in the windowpane.
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