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

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

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Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space-traveler's helmet. Stay inside or you perish.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.
Vladimir Nabokov
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The lost glove is happy.
Vladimir Nabokov
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In and out of my heart flowed my rainbow blood.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Do not be awed by giant predecessors. Be ill-tempered with their renown. Point out flaws. Frighten interviewers from Time. Appear in Playboy. Sell to the movies.
Vladimir Nabokov
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The general impression is that fifteen year-old Dolly remains morbidly uninterested in sexual matters, or to be exact, represses her curiosity in order to save her ignorance and self-dignity.
Vladimir Nabokov
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But that mimosa grove-the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since-until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Stirless, I stand at the window, and in the black bowl of the sky glows like a golden drop of honey the mellow moon
Vladimir Nabokov
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I witness with pleasure the supreme achievement of memory, which is the masterly use it makes of innate harmonies when gathering to its fold the suspended and wandering tonalities of the past.
Vladimir Nabokov
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You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.
Vladimir Nabokov
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The sun is a thief: she lures the sea and robs it. The moon is a thief: he steals his silvery light from the sun. The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.
Vladimir Nabokov
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The social or economic structure of the ideal state is of little concern to me. My desires are modest. Portraits of the head of the government should not exceed a postage stamp in size. No torture and no executions. No music, except coming through earphones, or played in theaters. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of art.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Dear Jesus, do something.
Vladimir Nabokov
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I confess, I do not believe in time.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Those Eggheadsareterrible Philistines. A realgood head is not oval but round.
Vladimir Nabokov
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We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.
Vladimir Nabokov
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And really, the reason we think of death in celestial terms is that the visible firmament, especially at night (above our blacked-out Paris with the gaunt arches of its Boulevard Exelmans and the ceaseless Alpine gurgle of desolate latrines), is the most adequate and ever-present symbol of that vast silent explosion.
Vladimir Nabokov
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We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.
Vladimir Nabokov
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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.
Vladimir Nabokov