More Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark.
We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.
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.
Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.
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.
Resemblances are the shadows of differences. Different people see different similarities and similar differences.
Play! Invent the world! Invent reality!
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.
I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist.
And the rest is rust and stardust.
