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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.

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
Laughed
Pong
Tables
Countered
Asked
Inquired
Crime
Installed
Another
Ping
True
Basement
Two
Basements
Mentor
Tormentor

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while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time.
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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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