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At a very early stage of the novel's development I get this urge to collect bits of straw and fluff, and to eat pebbles. Nobody will ever discover how clearly a bird visualizes, or if it visualizes at all, the future nest and the eggs in it.

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
Stage
Clearly
Pebbles
Future
Discover
Straws
Ever
Bird
Nest
Early
Nests
Development
Collect
Nobody
Urge
Novel
Urges
Fluff
Bits
Eggs
Straw

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I think my favorite fact about myself is that I have never been dismayed by a critic's bilge or bile, and have never once in my life asked or thanked a reviewer for a review.
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do what only a true artist can do ... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation
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I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.
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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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I don't want an elderly gentleman from Vienna with an umbrella inflicting his dreams upon me.
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I confess, I do not believe in time.
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His wings were failing, but he refused to fall without a struggle.
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Mnemosyne, one must admit, has shown herself to be a very careless girl.
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Solitude is the playfield of Satan.
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Alas! In vain historians pry and probe: The same wind blows, and in the same live robe Truth bends her head to fingers curved cupwise And with a woman's smile and a child's care Examines something she is holding there Concealed by her own shoulder from our eyes.
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