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There is only one school of literature - that of talent.

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
School
Talent
Literature

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

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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.
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.
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...All my best words are deserters and do not answer the trumpet call, and the remainder are cripples.
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Only one letter divides the comic from the cosmic.
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Because you took advantage of my disadvantage.
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And what is death, if not a face at peace - its artistic perfection.
Vladimir Nabokov
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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.
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Ada girl, adored girl, [...] I'm a radiant void. I'm convalescing after a long and dreadful illness. You cried over my unseemly scar, but now life is going to be nothing but love and laughter, and corn in cans. I cannot brood over broken hearts, mine is too recently mended.
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I am not, and never was, and never could have been, a brutal scoundrel.
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There was a time in my demented youth When somehow I suspected that the truth About survival after death was known To every human being: I alone Knew nothing, and a great conspiracy Of books and people hid the truth from me.
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Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
Vladimir Nabokov
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You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own.
Vladimir Nabokov
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for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word.
Vladimir Nabokov
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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
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And this is the only immortality you and i may share, my Lolita.
Vladimir Nabokov
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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
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in a sense, all poetry is positional: to try to express one's position in regard to the universe embraced by consciousness, is an immemorial urge. The arms of consciousness reach out and grope, and the longer they are the better. Tentacles, not wings, are Apollo's natural members.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Measure me while I live - after it will be too late.
Vladimir Nabokov
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Devices which in some curious new way imitate nature are attractive to simple minds.
Vladimir Nabokov
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What surprises you in life? The marvel of consciousness -- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidts the night of non-being.
Vladimir Nabokov