Quotes from Nabokov Vladimir

Only one letter divides the comic from the cosmic.

Why our poet chose to give his 1958 hurricane a little-used Spanish name sometimes given to parrots) instead of Linda or Lois, is not clear.

Their first free and frantic caresses had been preceded by a brief period of strange craftiness, of cringing stealth.

A red backless slipper slowly slid off her foot...and Franz, bending down after it, plunged softly into dark slumber.

He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone.

With the help of the janitor he screwed on to the side of the desk a pencil sharpener - that highly satisfying, highly philosophical implement that goes ticonderoga-ticonderoga, feeding on the yellow finish and sweet wood, and ends up in a kind of soundlessly spinning ethereal void as we all must.

De veras no quiere que lo llevemos? —Es una caminata de diez minutos. Y en esta noche maravillosa, caminar es un imperativo. Los tres se quedaron un momento contemplando las estrellas. —Cada una de ellas es un mundo —dijo Hagen, mirándolas. —O un espantoso caos —dijo Clements, con un bostezo—. Temo que sean un cadáver fluorescente y que nosotros estemos dentro.

Under the assumption that it would attract less attention than a BIC language, the conspirators conducted telephone conversations in English--broken English, to be exact, with one tense, no articles, and two pronunciations, both wrong(129).