“Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.”
Vladimir Nabokov
PinIt was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.PinI think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes.PinKnowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.PinDo not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.PinLoneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.PinThe breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.PinLife is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses.PinSee you soon my strange joy, my tender night.PinNothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.
8 Vladimir Nabokov Quotes About Life
“…in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life.”
Vladimir Nabokov
PinCuriosity is insubordination in its purest form.PinWe live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.PinOur imagination flies – we are its shadow on the earth.PinThe cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.PinLet all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream, exhale, release life’s rapture.PinHuman life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.PinAnd the rest is rust and stardust.
10 Vladimir Nabokov Quotes on Love
“All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other’s soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do so.”
Vladimir Nabokov
PinI knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.PinHe broke my heart. You merely broke my life.PinWe loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.PinPerhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.PinMost of all I want you to be happy, and it seems to me that I could give you that happiness — a sunny, simple happiness — and not an altogether common one…PinWhy should I tolerate a perfect stranger at the bedside of my mind?PinOh, don’t cry, I’m so sorry I cheated so much, but that’s the way things are.PinSome people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.PinI simply want to tell you that somehow I can’t imagine life without you…
5 Vladimir Nabokov Quotes that will Make You Think
“The contemplation of beauty, whether it be a uniquely tinted sunset, a radiant face, or a work of art, makes us glance back unwittingly at our personal past and juxtapose ourselves and our inner being with the utterly unattainable beauty revealed to us.”
Vladimir Nabokov
PinYou can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.PinThe pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.PinThere is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.PinOne is always at home in one’s past…
9 Vladimir Nabokov Quotes on Writing
“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 lives.”
Vladimir Nabokov
PinA writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.PinI think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.PinI need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don’t really exist if you don’t.PinPoetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words.PinA masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.PinStyle and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.PinTurning one’s novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches for a painting that has long ago been finished and framed.PinThe more gifted and talkative one’s characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind.
3 Vladimir Nabokov Quotes on Literature
“Literature was not born the day when a boy crying “wolf, wolf” came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying “wolf, wolf” and there was no wolf behind him.”
Vladimir Nabokov
PinLiterature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.PinThere is only one school of literature – that of talent.
Overcoming depression and suicidal thoughts, Jeremiah Say found solace in quotes. After filling countless pages with resonating words, he moved his collection online to save trees and inspire others. Thus, GraciousQuotes.com was born. Jeremiah firmly believes in the power of quotes to swiftly spark inspiration during hard times. His blog is dedicated to uplifting others through these shared wisdoms. Discover more about Gracious Quotes or get in touch with Jeremiah.