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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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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
Sells
Playboy
Movies
Predecessors
Point
Giant
Time
Flaws
Awed
Life
Giants
Interviewers
Ill
Renown
Sell
Tempered
Appear
Frighten
More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
And she was mine, she was mine, the key was in my fist, my fist was in my pocket, she was mine.
Vladimir Nabokov
There is only one real number: one. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity.
Vladimir Nabokov
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!
Vladimir Nabokov
Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.
Vladimir Nabokov
Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.
Vladimir Nabokov
Genius is finding the invisible link between things.
Vladimir Nabokov
It is strange how a memory will grow into a wax figure, how the cherub grows suspiciously prettier as its frame darkens with age-strange, strange are the mishaps of memory.
Vladimir Nabokov
Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses.
Vladimir Nabokov
Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark.
Vladimir Nabokov
My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.
Vladimir Nabokov
To begin with, let us take the following motto...Literature is Love. Now we can continue.
Vladimir Nabokov
Occasionally, in the middle of a conversation her name would be mentioned, and she would run down the steps of a chance sentence, without turning her head.
Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
Vladimir Nabokov
Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.
Vladimir Nabokov
It is hard, I submit, to loathe bloodshed, including war, more than I do, but it is still harder to exceed my loathing of the very nature of totalitarian states in which massacre is only an administrative detail.
Vladimir Nabokov
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
Human thought, flying on the trapezes of the star-filled universe, with mathematics stretched beneath, was like an acrobat working with a net but suddenly noticing that in reality there is no net.
Vladimir Nabokov
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
Do not be angry with the rain it simply does not know how to fall upwards.
Vladimir Nabokov
My own ultraviolet darling. Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
