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Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for.
Vladimir Nabokov -
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.
Vladimir Nabokov
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For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me.
Vladimir Nabokov -
Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum.
Vladimir Nabokov -
The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting.
Vladimir Nabokov -
Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.
Vladimir Nabokov -
I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past.
Vladimir Nabokov -
All religions are based on obsolete terminology.
Vladimir Nabokov
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No writer in a free country should be expected to bother about the exact demarcation between the sensuous and the sensual; this is preposterous; I can only admire but cannot emulate the accuracy of judgment of those who pose the fair young mammals photographed in magazines where the general neckline is just low enough to provoke a past master's chuckle and just high enough not to make a postmaster frown.
Vladimir Nabokov -
The sun is a thief: she lures the sea and robs it. The moon is a thief: he steals his silvery light from the sun. The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon.
Vladimir Nabokov -
All colors made me happy: even gray. My eyes were such that literally they Took photographs.
Vladimir Nabokov -
No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has.
Vladimir Nabokov -
I should allow only my heart to have imagination; and for the rest rely on memory, that long drawn sunset of one's personal truth.
Vladimir Nabokov -
I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze I cannot get out, said the starling
Vladimir Nabokov
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I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.
Vladimir Nabokov -
a man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs, and to sit down and write his will would be, at that moment, an act just as absurd as winding up one’s watch, since together with the man, the whole world is destroyed; the last letter is instantly reduced to dust and, with it, all the postmen; and like smoke, vanishes the estate bequeathed to a nonexistent progeny.
Vladimir Nabokov -
Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution.
Vladimir Nabokov -
Solitude is the playfield of Satan.
Vladimir Nabokov -
It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
Vladimir Nabokov -
Those Eggheadsareterrible Philistines. A realgood head is not oval but round.
Vladimir Nabokov
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And I want to rise up, throw my arms open for a vast embrace, address an ample, luminous discourse to the invisible crowds. I would start like this: "O rainbow-colored gods. . .
Vladimir Nabokov -
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/By the false azure in the windowpane.
Vladimir Nabokov -
Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.
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.
Vladimir Nabokov