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Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospective: it has to be shattered before being ascertained.

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
States
Mind
Ascertained
Retrospective
Complacency
Shattered
Exists
State

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

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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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Another tormentor inquired if it was true that I had installed two ping-pong tables in my basement. I asked, was it a crime? No, he said, but why two? Is that a crime? I countered, and they all laughed.
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Genius is finding the invisible link between things.
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And yet I adore him. I think he's quite crazy, and with no place or occupation in life, and far from happy, and philosophically irresponsible – and there is absolutely nobody like him.
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Genius still means to me, in my Russian fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The gift of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.
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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.
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But in my arms she was always Lolita.
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I have never seen a more lucid, more lonely, better balanced mad mind than mine.
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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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My heart was a hysterical unreliable organ.
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A thousand years ago five minutes were Equal to forty ounces of fine sand. Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and Infinite aftertime: above your head They close like giant wings, and you are dead.
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Coordinating there Events and objects with remote events And vanished objects. Making ornaments Of accidents and possibilities.
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Long after her death I felt her thoughts floating through mine. Long before we met we had had the same dreams. We compared notes. We found strange affinities. The same June of the same year (1919) a stray canary had fluttered into her house and mine, in two widely separated countries. Oh, Lolita, had you love me thus!
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Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.
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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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Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only itself to copy.
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Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth.
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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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I confess, I do not believe in time.
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