Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations. Vladimir Nabokov More Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov More Quotes From Vladimir Nabokov Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Vladimir Nabokov hate ends people Imagination without knowledge leads no farther than the back yard of primitive art, the child's scrawl on the fence, and the crank's message in the market place. Art is never simple. Vladimir Nabokov simple children art Direct interference in a person's life does not enter our scope of activity, nor, on the other, tralatitiously speaking, hand, is his destiny a chain of predeterminate links: some 'future' events may be linked to others, O.K., but all are chimeric, and every cause-and-effect sequence is always a hit-and-miss affair, even if the lunette has actually closed around your neck, and the cretinous crowd holds its breath. Vladimir Nabokov destiny missing hands There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog. Vladimir Nabokov historical-novels powerful fiction The fire you rubbed left its brand on the most vulnerable, most vicious and tender point of my body. Now I have to pay for your rasping the red rash too strongly, too soon, as charred wood has to pay for burning. When I remain without your caresses, I lose all control of my nerves, nothing exists any more than the ecstasy of friction, the abiding effect of your sting, of your delicious poison. Vladimir Nabokov abiding poison fire Genius is finding the invisible link between things. Vladimir Nabokov invisible genius links I was the shadow of the waxwing slain By the false azure in the windowpane; I was the smudge of ashen fluff -and I Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky. And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate: Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass Hang all the furniture above the grass, And how delightful when a fall of snow Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so As to make chair and bed exactly stand Upon that snow, out in that crystal land! Vladimir Nabokov dark night fall Alas! In vain historians pry and probe: The same wind blows, and in the same live robe Truth bends her head to fingers curved cupwise; And with a woman's smile and a child's care Examines something she is holding there Concealed by her own shoulder from our eyes. Vladimir Nabokov eye truth children A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die. Vladimir Nabokov summer memories reality Only talent interests me in paintings and books. Not general ideas, but the individual contribution. Vladimir Nabokov painting book ideas Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoievsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. Vladimir Nabokov realizing artist two All colors made me happy: even gray. My eyes were such that literally they Took photographs. Vladimir Nabokov color eye photograph There is only one real number: one. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity. Vladimir Nabokov and-love real numbers The future is but the obsolete in reverse. Vladimir Nabokov reverse obsolete Usually I read several books at a time - old books, new books, fiction, nonfiction, verse, anything - and when the bedside heap of a dozen volumes or so has dwindled to two or three, which generally happens by the end of one week, I accumulate another pile. Vladimir Nabokov three two book Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark. Vladimir Nabokov arrows mark There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity. Vladimir Nabokov baths mediocrity groups Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both art and truth. Vladimir Nabokov writing fiction art Everything in the world is beautiful, but Man only recognizes beauty if he sees it either seldom or from afar. Listen, today we are gods! Our blue shadows are enormous! We move in a gigantic, joyful world! Vladimir Nabokov beautiful beauty moving Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity. Vladimir Nabokov creativity inspirational thinking
