Quote

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.

Vladimir Nabokov

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Genius
Henry
Talent
Phrase
Means
Russian
Stills
James
Still
Phrases
Mean
Gift
Fastidiousness
Unique
Joyce
Pride
Dazzling

More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

Image
Why do those people guess so much and shave so little, and are so disdainful of hearing aids?
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Adultery is a most conventional way to rise above the conventional.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
We are most artistically caged.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
You lose your immortality when you lose your memory.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
It was an interesting thing to do. Why did I write any of my books, after all? For the sake of the pleasure, for the sake of the difficulty. I have no social purpose, no moral message I've no general ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
My principal failing as a writer is the lack of spontaneity the nuisance of parallel thoughts, second thoughts, third thoughts inability to express myself properly in any language unless I compose every damned sentence in my bath, in my mind, at my desk.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Most of the dandelions had changed from suns to moons.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Age indomitably, in the European manner. Do not finish your labours young. Be a planet, not a meteor. Honor the working day. Sit at your desk.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Dear Jesus, do something.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
I cannot conceive how anybody in his right mind should go to a psychoanalyst.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
In this crazy mirror of terror and art a pseudo-quotation made up of obscure Shakespeareanisms (Chapter Three) somehow produces, despite its lack of literal meaning, the blurred diminutive image of the acrobatic performance that so gloriously supplies the bravura ending for the next chapter.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
It is a short walk from the hallelujah to the hoot.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that offensive is frequently but a synonym for unusual and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come more or less as a shocking surprise.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.
Vladimir Nabokov
Image
Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.
Vladimir Nabokov