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Human thought, flying on the trapezes of the star-filled universe, with mathematics stretched beneath, was like an acrobat working with a net but suddenly noticing that in reality there is no net.

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
Universe
Beneath
Reality
Flying
Thought
Suddenly
Human
Mathematics
Humans
Star
Acrobat
Like
Filled
Trapeze
Stars
Stretched
Working
Noticing

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I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood - or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead.
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...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.
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Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.
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Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.
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The only real number is one, the rest are mere repetition
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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.
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And the rest is rust and stardust.
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A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.
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At eight, he had once told his mother that he wanted to paint air.
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His wings were failing, but he refused to fall without a struggle.
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Let all of life be an unfettered howl.
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Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.
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Imagine me I shall not exist if you do not imagine me try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity let's even smile a little. After all, there is no harm in smiling.
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Most of the dandelions had changed from suns to moons.
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My answer to your question'Does the writer have a social responsibility?' is NO.You owe me ten cents, sir.
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By God, I could make myself bring her that economically halved grapefruit, that sugarless breakfast.
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Poor Knight! he really had two periods, the firsta dull man writing broken English, the seconda broken man writing dull English.
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