I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is. Vladimir Nabokov More Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov More Quotes From Vladimir Nabokov The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense. Vladimir Nabokov nonsense nonsensical evolution I sometimes used to ask myself, what on earth did I love her for? Maybe fore the warm hazel iris of her fluffy eyes, or for the natural side-wave of her brown hair, done anyhow, or again for that movement of her plump shoulders. But, probably the truth was that I loved her because she loved me. To her I was the ideal man: brains, pluck. And there was none dressed better. I remember once, when I first put on that new dinner jacket, with the vast trousers, she clapsed her hands, sank down on a chair and murmured: 'Oh, Hermann...." It was ravishment bordering upon something like heavenly woe. Vladimir Nabokov eye hair men Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me; try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity; let's even smile a little. After all, there is no harm in smiling. Vladimir Nabokov doe littles trying Suddenly for no earthly reason I felt immensely sorry for him and longed to say something real, something with wings and a heart, but the birds I wanted settled on my shoulders and head only later when I was alone and not in need of words. Vladimir Nabokov real sorry heart I mean, I have the feeling that something in my mind is poisoning everything else. Vladimir Nabokov mind feelings mean I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more. Vladimir Nabokov expression littles knowledge Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Vladimir Nabokov howl life-is I confess, I do not believe in time. Vladimir Nabokov time believe Because you took advantage of my disadvantage. Vladimir Nabokov disadvantages advantage Maybe the only thing that hints at a sense of Time is rhythm; not the recurrent beats of the rhythm but the gap between two such beats, the gray gap between black beats: the Tender Interval. Vladimir Nabokov hints black two There are teachers and students with square minds who are by nature meant to undergo the fascination of catagories. For them, 'schools' and 'movements' are everything; by painting a group symbol on the brow of mediocrity, they condone their own incomprehension of true genius. Vladimir Nabokov squares teacher school The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before. Vladimir Nabokov written grows writing Genius is an African who dreams up snow. Vladimir Nabokov educational dream snow I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don't really exist if you don't. Vladimir Nabokov need-you imagine needs Don't touch me; I'll die if you touch me. Vladimir Nabokov touch-me dies ifs I don't think in any language. I think in images. Vladimir Nabokov language thinking He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire. He could not even make himself stretch out his hand to switch on the light. The simple transition from intention to action seemed an unimaginable miracle. Vladimir Nabokov light simple hands Art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex. Vladimir Nabokov complexes deceitful art I do not know if it has ever been noted before that one of the main characteristics of life is discreteness. Unless a film of flesh envelopes us, we die. Man exists only insofar as he is separated from his surroundings. The cranium is a space-traveler's helmet. Stay inside or you perish. Death is divestment, death is communion. It may be wonderful to mix with the landscape, but to do so is the end of the tender ego. Vladimir Nabokov ego space men But as Van casually directed the searchlight of backthought into that maze of the past where the mirror-lined narrow paths not only took different turns, but used different levels (as a mule-drawn cart passes under the arch of a viaduct along which a motor skims by), he found himself tackling, in still vague and idle fashion, the science that was to obsess his mature years - problems of space and time, space versus time, time-twisted space, space as time, time as space - and space breaking away from time, in the final tragic triumph of human cogitation: I am because I die. Vladimir Nabokov fashion past years
