More Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.
...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.
Time is rhythm: the insect rhythm of a warm humid night, brain ripple, breathing, the drum in my temple—these are our faithful timekeepers; and reason corrects the feverish beat.
Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.
The future is but the obsolete in reverse.
The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book.
For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist.
Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.
