Quotes from Vladimir Nabokov

I gave her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion

She thought (...) of the incalculable amount of tenderness contained in the world; of the fate of this tenderness, which is either crushed, or wasted, or transformed into madness; of neglected children humming to themselves in unswept corners; of beautiful weeds that cannot hide from the farmer and helplessly have to watch the shadow of his simian stoop leave mangled flowers in its wake, as the monstrous darkness approaches.

What a misunderstanding, said Cincinnatus and suddenly burst out laughing. He stood up and took off the dressing-gown, the skullcap, the slippers. he took off the linen trousers and shirt He took off his head like a toupee, took off his collarbones like shoulder straps, took off his rib cage like a hauberk. He took off his hips and his legs, he took off his arms like gauntlets and threw them in a corner. What was left of him gradually dissolved, hardly colouring the air.

picnic, lightning)

iar contactele acestea incomplete au împins trupurile noastre s?n?toase, tinere È™i lipsite de experien?? într-o asemenea exasperare, încât nu se mai putea liniÈ™ti nici m?car apa albastr? È™i r?coroas? sub care noi doi ne È›ineam înc? ag??aÈ›i unul de altul.

I would moreover submit that, in regard to the power of hoarding up impressions, Russian children of my generation passed through a period of genius, as if destiny were loyally trying what it could for them by giving them more than their share, in view of the cataclysm that was to remove completely the world they had known.

Humbert era perfectamente capaz de tener relaciones con Eva, pero suspiraba por Lilith.

two eyes and a foot of engorged brawn—to mention only mentionable matters

But how can I begin writing when I do not know whether I shall have time enough, and the torture comes when you say to yourself, Yesterday there would have been enough times - and again you think, If only I had begun yesterday...

It's crowded and gay down there, with a masturbating Jazzband. No?

Así aislada, a esa distancia, la visión adquiría un sutilísimo encanto que me hacía precipitar hacia mi solitaria gratificación.

Želim da ustanem, da raširim ruke za beskrajni zagrljaj, da se velikim, blistavim re?ima obratim nevidljivoj publici. Po?eo bih ovako: – O bogovi duginih boja...

Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as "nymphets

I know something. I know something. But expression of it comes so hard !

so that beautiful idea, which otherwise would have lingered on and perhaps found a wall on which to hang and blossom, had strangely faded and shrivelled in the course of the last week.

We all have such fateful objects - it may be a recurrent landscape in one case, a number in another - carefully chosen by the gods to attract events of special significance for us: here shall John always stumble; there shall Jane's heart always break.

You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own

O my Carmen, my little Carmen! Something, something those something nights, And the stars, and the cars, and the bars, and the     barmen – And, O my charmin', our dreadful fights. And the something town where so gaily, arm in Arm, we went, and our final row, And the gun I killed you with, O my Carmen, The gun I am holding now. (Drew his .32 automatic, I guess, and put a bullet through his moll's eye.) Fourteen

Blunders, gropings, disappointment; surely the Cupid serving him was left-handed, with a weak chin and no imagination. And alongside these feeble romances there had been hundreds of girls of whom he had dreamed but whom he had never got to know; they had just slid past him, leaving for a day or two that hopeless sense of loss which makes beauty what it is: a distant lone tree against golden heavens; ripples of light on the inner curve of a bridge; a thing quite impossible to capture

I have always had a number of parts lined up in case the muse failed. A lepidopterist exploring famous jungles came first, then there was the chess grand master, then the tennis ace with an unreturnable service, then the goalie saving a historic shot, and finally, finally, the author of a pile of unknown writings- Pale Fire, Lolita, Ada- which my heirs discover and publish.

Her love was of the lily variety

Time means succession, and succession, change: Hence timelessness is bound to disarrange Schedules of sentiment. We give advice 570  To widower. He has been married twice: He meets his wives; both loved, both loving, both Jealous of one another. Time means growth, And growth means nothing in Elysian life.

A colored spiral in a small ball of glass, this is how I see my own life. The twenty years I spent in my native Russia (1899–1919) take care of the thetic arc. Twenty-one years of voluntary exile in England, Germany and France (1919–40) supply the obvious antithesis. The period spent in my adopted country (1940–60) forms a synthesis – and a new thesis.

I could not bring myself to touch him in order to make sure he was really dead. He looked it: a quarter of his face gone, and two flies beside themselves with a dawning sense of unbelievable luck.