More Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.
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.
...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.
Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.
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.
Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the brain—the brain, that stomach of the soul. Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed—then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; then, and only then, its rare flavor will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood.
The future is but the obsolete in reverse.
Only one letter divides the comic from the cosmic.
I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist.
We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.
