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Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
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
Life
Tongue
Sin
Taking
Steps
Lolita
Fire
Loins
Three
Palate
Light
Trip
Soul
Teeth
More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
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
Use unlikely materials. Who would choose Pnin as hero, but how did we live before Pnin?
Vladimir Nabokov
Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
Vladimir Nabokov
for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.
Vladimir Nabokov
Was she really beautiful? Was she at least what they call attractive? She was exasperation, she was torture.
Vladimir Nabokov
Stirless, I stand at the window, and in the black bowl of the sky glows like a golden drop of honey the mellow moon
Vladimir Nabokov
The tiny madman in his padded cell.
Vladimir Nabokov
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.
Vladimir Nabokov
Devices which in some curious new way imitate nature are attractive to simple minds.
Vladimir Nabokov
While a few pertinent points have to be marked, the general impression I desire to convey is of a side door crashing open in life's full flight, and a rush of roaring black time drowning with its whipping wind the cry of lone disaster.
Vladimir Nabokov
Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity.
Vladimir Nabokov
If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other. Remind us of Stravinsky. Know the names of plants and flying creatures. Hunt gauzy wings with snares of gauze. Make science pay tribute. Have a butterfly known by your name.
Vladimir Nabokov
The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that offensive is frequently but a synonym for unusual and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come more or less as a shocking surprise.
Vladimir Nabokov
I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise--a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames--but still a paradise.
Vladimir Nabokov
A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.
Vladimir Nabokov
I have the European urge to use my feet when a drive can be dispensed with.
Vladimir Nabokov
There is an old American saying 'He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone.
Vladimir Nabokov
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
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.
Vladimir Nabokov
I have no ear for music. When I attend a concert, I endeavor gamely to follow the sequence and relationship of sounds but cannot keep it up for more than a few minutes. Visual impressions, reflections of hands in lacquered wood, a diligent bald spot over a fiddle, take over, and soon I am bored beyond measure by the motions of the musicians.
Vladimir Nabokov