Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.

Vladimir Nabokov

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Quotes to Explore

• Dr. Phil is hiding something. Otherwise, why wouldn't he use his last name?

  

  Garry Shandling
  • Why
  • Name
  • Last

• We are slaves to whatever we don't understand.

  

  Vernon Howard
  • Understand
  • Slaves
  • Whatever

• The Supreme Court is not elected, and it is therefore not a proper arbiter of social policy.

  

  Lamar S. Smith
  • Social
  • Court
  • Supreme Court

• Usually, if you read a script by somebody else and there's a dense page of stage directions, people just skip through it or speed read it.

  

  Edgar Wright
  • People
  • You
  • Speed

• Creating things sometimes is difficult.

  

  Warren Littlefield
  • Sometimes
  • Things
  • Difficult

• When I graduated from university I tried to buy a beeper, and it cost me $250. My pay at the time was $10 a month.

  

  Jack Ma
  • Time
  • Pay
  • University

• I want to pursue a career in film.

  

  O'Shea Jackson, Jr.
  • Want
  • Career
  • Film

• Insight enables you make sure you don't allow negative beliefs to get permanently set in your thinking - just the same way you wouldn't want fractured bones to be permanently set into place.

  

  Karen Salmansohn
  • Thinking
  • Want
  • Negative

• The first single I released, 'Anything Goes,' is probably one of the best-written songs I've heard in a long time. It takes somebody knowing who you are. Sometimes writers know who an artist is and what they want to say and how they sing. I will never be opposed to cutting a song if somebody nails my life and what I'm going through.

  

  Randy Houser
  • Life
  • Time
  • Long

• I pinch myself daily at the good fortune of my life, you know, in many ways.

  

  Orlando Bloom
  • Life
  • Good
  • Daily

• The first thing I look at is, 'Is the entrepreneur going after really big problems, to the extent that it feels scary when they talk about it?' You wonder if the idea is possible. I have seen that a lot of times, people go after small problems, and that's a sign that they are not confident.

  

  Sachin Bansal
  • People
  • Small
  • Wonder

• I've been accused of wanting to allow terrorists to have weapons to attack America.

  

  Rand Paul
  • America
  • Weapons
  • Allow

• When I was little, I got into a little accident, and it gave me congenital glaucoma in both of my eyes.

  

  Fetty Wap
  • Me
  • Eyes
  • Accident

• Jordan has to show the Arab world that there's another way of doing things. We're a monarchy, yes, but if we can show democracy that leads to a two-, three-, four-party system - left, right and center - in a couple of years' time, then the Muslim Brotherhood will no longer be something to contend with.

  

  Abdullah II of Jordan
  • Time
  • World
  • Party

• I was always kind of florid. And full of rhetoric. That was my flaw. My whole time writing, I've had to work against that because it can be a wrecking posture.

  

  Barry Hannah
  • Time
  • Work
  • Writing

• Mankind's feeling of responsibility to create a decent life and make it worth living with dignity has always been stronger than the will to kill life.

  

  Tawakkol Karman
  • Life
  • Feeling
  • Responsibility

• The surveillance of ordinary people is far greater than I would have imagined and far greater than the American public has been able to debate.

  

  Barton Gellman
  • People
  • American
  • Debate

• I don't allow meat in my house or in my oven. My whole family is vegetarian - and although I've given my kids the choice to order meat at a restaurant when they reach five, they're not interested.

  

  Sadie Frost
  • Family
  • Kids
  • House

• There will be no security in our world, no release from agonizing tension, no genuine progress, no enduring peace, until, in Shelley's fine words, 'reason's voice, loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked the nations'.

  

  Ralph Bunche
  • World
  • Nature
  • Words

• My mandate...is to promote the protection, rights and welfare of children.

  

  Olara Otunnu
  • Children
  • Rights
  • Protection

• I am a rereader. Quality is variety if you wait long enough. Barthes, Baudelaire, Benjamin, Celine, Duras, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Melville: There is so much to revisit. 'Ingrid Caven,' by Jean-Jacques Schuhl, is always in rotation. I used to read 'Morvern Callar,' by Alan Warner, every year - I adored that book.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • Long
  • Book
  • Quality

• Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.

  

  Vladimir Nabokov
  • Book
  • Style
  • Essence