Quotes from Vladimir Nabokov

Y mientras mis piernas de autómata seguían andando, me impresionó el hecho de que sencillamente no sabía una palabra sobre el espíritu de mi niña querida, y que sin duda, más allá de los terribles clichés juveniles, había en ella un jardín y un crepúsculo y el portal de un palacio: regiones vagarosas y adorables, completamente prohibidas para mí, ajenas a mis sucios andrajos y a mis convulsiones.

The past was safe in its cage. Why not have a look?

El sentido moral de los mortales es el precio que debemos pagar por nuestro sentido mortal de la belleza.57

It's tempting, emptiness.

non di rado la vita imita i romanzieri francesi.

I have no desires, save the desire to express myself- in defiance of all the world's muteness.

?i eu priveam, o priveam È™i am înÈ›eles, clar, aÈ™a cum È™tiu c? o s? mor, c? o iubisem cum nu iubisem nimic din ceea ce v?zusem sau imaginasem pe p?mânt sau sperasem s? întâlnesc altundeva. Nu mai era decât adierea slab? a violetei È™i ecoul de frunz? moart? al nimfetei peste care m? rostogolisem cu asemenea strig?te în trecut.

Something was destroyed forever [...], everything would henceforward be tainted with a poisonous flavour of doubt

I adore her so horribly. No: 'horribly' is the wrong word. The elation with which the vision of new delights filled me was not horrible but pathetic. I qualify it as pathetic. Pathetic – because despite the insatiable fire of my venereal appetite, I intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that twelve-year-old child. And

They must have been glorious time together, those two. And it is hard to believe that the warmth, the tenderness, the beauty of it has not been gathered, and it is not treasured somewhere, somehow, by some immortal witness of mortal life.

there is the rare kind of time in which I live - the pause, the hiatus, when the heart is like a feather....

He could not even see the bluish glimmer of a window or those faint patches of light which come to stay with the walls at night

No me acuerdo, ¿Cómo cabe recordar lo que uno ha sido en el pasado? Quizá fuera una ostra, o un pájaro, o quizá profesor de matemáticas... De todos modos nuestra anterior vida en Rusia parece algo que hubiera ocurrido antes del principio de los tiempos, algo metafísico, o como quiera usted llamarlo. No, metafísico no es la palabra adecuada... Sí, ahora sé de qué se trata. Es como una metempsicosis.

The decrees of society are temporary ones; what Tolstoy is interested in are the eternal demands of morality.

o bien ocurría algo en que las gentes que caminan por la ciudad nunca se fijan: una estrella, más rápida que el pensamiento y más silenciosa que una lágrima, caía del firmamento

She wrote poetry. She was poetically superstitious. She said she knew she would die soon after my sixteenth birthday, and did.

Mientras mi cuerpo sabía qué anhelaba, mi espíritu rechazaba cada clamor de mi cuerpo. De pronto me sentía avergonzado, atemorizado; de pronto tenía un optimismo febril. Los tabúes me estrangulaban.

Eis aqui, pois, a minha história. Eu a reli. Ela contém fragmentos de medula - e sangue, e belas e brilhantes moscas azuis. Neste ou naquele de seus volteios sinto que o meu escorregadio 'eu' me foge, deslizando para águas mais profundas e negras do que aquelas que me interessa perscrutar.

lo ofensivo no suele ser más que un sinónimo de lo insólito.

I watched, with the stark lucidity of a future recollection (you know—trying to see things as you will remember having seen them)

Everything, even what was saddest and most shameful in his past life, was overlaid with the deceptive charm of colours. He was horrified to realize how little he had used his eyes - for these colours moved across too vague a background and their outlines were singularly blurred

La gente que se afeita se rejuvenece un día todas las mañanas.

Oh, he was quite a scholar, Mr. Taxovich.

Lighted advertisements went running up dark red facades and dissipating again. He would pass girls; he would turn to look; but the prettier the face, the harder it was to take the plunge.