You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Quote by Vladimir Nabokov

Topics: Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

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

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

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.

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...

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.

Caress the detail, the divine detail.

Caress the detail, the divine detail.

There is only one school of literature - that of talent.

There is only one school of literature - that of talent.

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in...

The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in...

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.

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...

It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an...

It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an...

Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received...

Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received...

Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospective: it has to be...

Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospective: it has to be...

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal...

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal...

Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution.

Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution.

I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels...

I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels...

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

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

Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.

Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.

Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an...

Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an...

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.