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Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.

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
Vulgarity
Exhilarating
Nothing
Philistine
Philistines

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All religions are based on obsolete terminology.
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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.
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The square root of I is I.
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I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/By the false azure in the windowpane.
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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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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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And presently I was driving through the drizzle of the dying day, with the windshield wipers in full action but unable to cope with my tears.
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Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity.
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Our best yesterdays are now foul piles of crumpled names.
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In and out of my heart flowed my rainbow blood.
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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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I don't read reviews about myself with any special eagerness or attention unless they are masterpieces of wit and acumen, and I never reread them.
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a person hoping to become a poet must have the capacity of thinking of several things at a time.
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We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.
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Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream, exhale, release life's rapture.
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A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
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I have no ear for music. When I attend a concert, I endeavor gamely to follow the sequence and relationship of sounds but cannot keep it up for more than a few minutes. Visual impressions, reflections of hands in lacquered wood, a diligent bald spot over a fiddle, take over, and soon I am bored beyond measure by the motions of the musicians.
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There is an old American saying 'He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone.
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