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If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.

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
Poet
Unfinished
Understand
Correctly
Sense
Suggests
Human
Masterpiece
Humans
Obscure
Life
Observation
Vast
Succinct
Series
Footnotes

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A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle.
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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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A thousand years ago five minutes were Equal to forty ounces of fine sand. Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and Infinite aftertime: above your head They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
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Why should I tolerate a perfect stranger at the bedside of my mind?
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There is an old American saying 'He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone.
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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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The square root of I is I.
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He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire. He could not even make himself stretch out his hand to switch on the light. The simple transition from intention to action seemed an unimaginable miracle.
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All the information I have about myself is from forged documents.
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To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute.
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I adore you, mon petit, and would never allow him to hurt you, no matter how gently or madly.
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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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Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with!
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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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I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust
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Adultery is a most conventional way to rise above the conventional.
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I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past.
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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.
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