Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among spurious…

Quote by Vladimir Nabokov

Topics: Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has.

No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has.

Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be...

Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be...

Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm...

Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm...

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like...

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like...

My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.

My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is...

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is...

Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.

Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.

Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.

Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.

Solitude is the play field of Satan

Solitude is the play field of Satan

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to...

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to...

Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution.

Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution.

A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to...

A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to...

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

Turning one's novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches...

Turning one's novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches...

Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something...

Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something...

Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words.

Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words.

A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the...

A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the...

I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers and, generally, persons...

I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers and, generally, persons...

Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

It is hard, I submit, to loathe bloodshed, including war, more than I do, but...

It is hard, I submit, to loathe bloodshed, including war, more than I do, but...