Vladimir Nabokov quotes - page 6

I have no desires, save the desire to express myself in defiance of all the world's muteness. (Vladimir Nabokov)
The square root of I is I. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
There is no science without fancy and no art without fact. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
Genius is finding the invisible link between things. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
I adore you, mon petit, and would never allow him to hurt you, no matter how gently or madly. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
do what only a true artist can do... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
My God died young. Theolatry i found Degrading, and its premises, unsound. No free man needs God; but was I free? View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
...She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or bridge club, or any other deadly conventionality, but never her soul. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
Beauty plus pity-that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
You lose your immortality when you lose your memory. (Vladimir Nabokov)
Occasionally, in the middle of a conversation her name would be mentioned, and she would run down the steps of a chance sentence, without turning her head. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
I see again my schoolroom in Vyra, the blue roses of the wallpaper, the open window.... Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
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. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
There was no Lo to behold. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
I am sentimental,' she said. ‘I could dissect a koala but not its baby. I like the words damozel, eglantine, elegant. I love when you kiss my elongated white hand. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
a person hoping to become a poet must have the capacity of thinking of several things at a time. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
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. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
I have rewritten - often several times - every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
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. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
His wings were failing, but he refused to fall without a struggle. (Vladimir Nabokov)
There is only one real number: one. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
for better or worse, it is the commentator who has the last word. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
Time is rhythm: the insect rhythm of a warm humid night, brain ripple, breathing, the drum in my temple-these are our faithful timekeepers; and reason corrects the feverish beat. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov
The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, has ceased to be vicious; it has been set free. View quote
Vladimir Nabokov