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I have never seen a more lucid, more lonely, better balanced mad mind than mine.

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
Never
Balanced
Mad
Lonely
Mines
Mine
Seen
Better
Mind
Lucid

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The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before.
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Ideas in modern Russia are machine-cut blocks coming in solid colors the nuance is outlawed, the interval walled up, the curve grossly stepped.
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Solitude was corrupting me.
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No difference exists between American and European manners. A proletarian from Chicago can be just as Philistine as an English duke.
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The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser.
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The contemplation of beauty, whether it be a uniquely tinted sunset, a radiant face, or a work of art, makes us glance back unwittingly at our personal past and juxtapose ourselves and our inner being with the utterly unattainable beauty revealed to us.
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Adultery is a most conventional way to rise above the conventional.
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The only real number is one, the rest are mere repetition
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And she was mine, she was mine, the key was in my fist, my fist was in my pocket, she was mine.
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And yet I am happy. Yes, happy. I swear. I swear that I am happy...What does it matter that I am a bit cheap, a bit foul, and that no one appreciates all the remarkable things about me-my fantasy, my erudition, my literary gift...I am happy that I can gaze at myself, for any man is absorbing-yes, really absorbing! ... I am happy-yes, happy!
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Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream, exhale, release life's rapture.
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I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.
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Above all, beware of platitudes, i.e., word combinations that have already appeared a thousand times.... As a general rule, try to find new combinations of words (not for the sake of their novelty, but because every person sees things in an individual way and must find his own words for them).
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In reading, one should notice and fondle details.
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Mnemosyne, one must admit, has shown herself to be a very careless girl.
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Remembrance, like Rembrandt, is dark but festive. Remembered ones dress up for the occasion and sit still. Memory is a photo-studio de luxe on an infinite Fifth Power Avenue.
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I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get drunk, go to church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations.
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There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called powerful novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.
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In this crazy mirror of terror and art a pseudo-quotation made up of obscure Shakespeareanisms (Chapter Three) somehow produces, despite its lack of literal meaning, the blurred diminutive image of the acrobatic performance that so gloriously supplies the bravura ending for the next chapter.
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Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.
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