Quote

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.

Vladimir Nabokov

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Night
Third
Insomniac
Two
Thirds
Dismal
Even
Afraid
Longs
Trying
Side
Wrist
Never
Sides
Attempted
Sleep
Wrists
Hours
Insomnia
Left
Touching

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

Image
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
Image
There is no science without fancy and no art without fact.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
In and out of my heart flowed my rainbow blood.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Do not be awed by giant predecessors. Be ill-tempered with their renown. Point out flaws. Frighten interviewers from Time. Appear in Playboy. Sell to the movies.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Do not be angry with the rain it simply does not know how to fall upwards.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Life is short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It is a very short walk. Make those twenty-five steps. Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever after.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Why do those people guess so much and shave so little, and are so disdainful of hearing aids?
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
do what only a true artist can do ... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
in a sense, all poetry is positional: to try to express one's position in regard to the universe embraced by consciousness, is an immemorial urge. The arms of consciousness reach out and grope, and the longer they are the better. Tentacles, not wings, are Apollo's natural members.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That’s what I like about coincidence.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Caress the detail, the divine detail.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
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.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
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
Image
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
...and the red sun of desire and decision (the two things that create a live world) rose higher and higher, while upon a succession of balconies a succession of libertines, sparkling glass in hand, toasted the bliss of past and future nights.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
I don't read reviews about myself with any special eagerness or attention unless they are masterpieces of wit and acumen, and I never reread them.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Between the wolf in the tall grass and the wolf in the tall story there is a shimmering go-between. That go-between, that prism, is the art of literature.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.
Vladimir Nabokov