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
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.
You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.
book people survival
There was a time in my demented youth When somehow I suspected that the truth About survival after death was known To every human being: I alone Knew nothing, and a great conspiracy Of books and people hid the truth from me.
towns bed sometimes
My Carmen," I said (I used to call her that sometimes) "we shall leave this raw sore town as soon as you get out of bed." "... Because, really," I continued, "there is no point in staying here." "There is no point in staying anywhere," said Lolita.
age nine limits
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.
weed rust decay
I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust
She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her.