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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.

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
Look
Number
Radio
Companions
Matter
Choice
Fantasy
Fantasies
Looks
Numbers
Matters
Emissions
Important
Food
Various
Hobbies
Animal
Supposed
Nostalgia
Choices
Animals
Companion
Fear
Changes
Unknown
Quiz
Also
Program
Forth
Nocturnal

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

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If possible, be Russian. And live in another country. Play chess. Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other. Remind us of Stravinsky. Know the names of plants and flying creatures. Hunt gauzy wings with snares of gauze. Make science pay tribute. Have a butterfly known by your name.
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One is always at home in one's past.
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Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.
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As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration [for Lolita] was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.
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Time is rhythm: the insect rhythm of a warm humid night, brain ripple, breathing, the drum in my temple—these are our faithful timekeepers and reason corrects the feverish beat.
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We are most artistically caged.
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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.
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There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child.
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…She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or bridge club, or any other deadly conventionality, but never her soul.
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A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
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In reading, one should notice and fondle details.
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Her lips were like large crimson polyps.
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Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle.
Vladimir Nabokov
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I think it is all a matter of love.
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I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of which I have the right to deny.
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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
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Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark.
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Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words.
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Usually I read several books at a time - old books, new books, fiction, nonfiction, verse, anything - and when the bedside heap of a dozen volumes or so has dwindled to two or three, which generally happens by the end of one week, I accumulate another pile.
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Those Eggheadsareterrible Philistines. A realgood head is not oval but round.
Vladimir Nabokov