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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

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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
Unless
Special
Acumen
Attention
Reread
Read
Masterpieces
Never
Eagerness
Masterpiece
Reviews
Wit

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

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An active and creative reader is a re-reader.
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The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.
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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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Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
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Don't touch me I'll die if you touch me.
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Memory overshadows the present and dims the future into something thicker than its usual pea soup.
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There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.
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I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don't really exist if you don't.
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Of all my Russian books, the defense contains and diffuses the greatest 'warmth' which may seem odd seeing how supremely abstract Chess is supposed to be
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In reading, one should notice and fondle details.
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A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world. In order to do this adequately, avoiding duplication of labor, the artist should know the given world.
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Why do those people guess so much and shave so little, and are so disdainful of hearing aids?
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I was also supposed to quiz my various companions on a number of important matters such as nostalgia, fear of unknown animals, food fantasies, nocturnal emissions, hobbies, choice of radio program, changes in out look and so forth.
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Readers are not sheep, and not every pen tempts them.
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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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The pleasures of writing correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading
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The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
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Her lips were like large crimson polyps.
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A cluster of stars palely glowed above us, between the silhouettes of long thin leaves that vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock. I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own.
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The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting.
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