Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin; 22 April 1899c – 2 July 1977) was a Russian-American novelist. His first nine novels were in Russian, and he achieved international prominence after he began writing English prose...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth23 April 1899
CitySaint Petersburg, Russia
CountryUnited States of America
daughter names people
I am probably responsible for the odd fact that people don't seem to name their daughters Lolita any more. I have heard of young female poodles being given that name since 1956, but of no human beings.
art demand chess
Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity
art book stressed
The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that "offensive" is frequently but a synonym for "unusual;" and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come more or less as a shocking surprise.
memories past achievement
I witness with pleasure the supreme achievement of memory, which is the masterly use it makes of innate harmonies when gathering to its fold the suspended and wandering tonalities of the past.
beautiful girl stars
but that mimosa grove - the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since." "this then is my story. i have reread it. it has bits of marrow sticking to it, and blood, and beautiful bright-green flies. at this or that twist of it i feel my slippery self eluding me, gliding into deeper and darker waters than i care to probe.
country writing past
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.
inspiration animal drawing
As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration [for Lolita] was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.
love thinking matter
I think it is all a matter of love...
insomnia matter consciousness
All my life I have been a poor go-to-sleeper. No matter how great my weariness, the wrench of parting with consciousness is unspeakably repulsive to me.
light effort soul
...If he failed the first time he took his driver's licence test, it was mainly because he started an argument with the examiner in an ill-timed effort to prove that nothing could be more humiliating to a rational creature than being required to encourage the development of a base conditional reflex by stopping at a red light when there was not an earthly soul around, heeled or wheeled. He was more circumspect the next time, and passed...
breakfast grapefruit
By God, I could make myself bring her that economically halved grapefruit, that sugarless breakfast.
way adultery rise-above
Adultery is a most conventional way to rise above the conventional.
darling ultraviolet my-own
My own ultraviolet darling. " Lolita
doors wind black
While a few pertinent points have to be marked, the general impression I desire to convey is of a side door crashing open in life's full flight, and a rush of roaring black time drowning with its whipping wind the cry of lone disaster.