Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

About Vladimir Nabokov:

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist. While Nabokov's first nine novels were in Russian, he later rose to international prominence as a writer of English prose. He also made serious contributions as a lepidopterist and chess composer.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The idea of God was invented in the small hours of history by a scam who had genius; it somehow reeks too much of humanity, that idea, to make its azure origin plausible...

Vladimir Nabokov

If I am not master of my life, not sultan of my own being, then no man's logic and no man's ecstatic fits may force me to find less silly my impossibly silly position: that of God's slave; no, not his slave even, but just a match which is aimlessly s...

Vladimir Nabokov

There is yet another reason why I cannot, nor wish to, believe in God: the fairy tale about him is not really mine, it belongs to strangers, to all men; it is soaked through by the evil-smelling effluvia of millions of other souls that have spun abou...

Vladimir Nabokov

I liked, as I like still, to make words look self-conscious and foolish, to bind them by mock marriage of a pun, to turn them inside out, to come upon them unawares. What is this jest in majesty? This ass in passion? How do god and devil combine to f...

Vladimir Nabokov

The pale organisms of literary heroes feeding under the author's supervision swell gradually with the reader's lifeblood; so that the genius of a writer consists in giving them the faculty to adapt themselves to that - not very appetizing - food and ...

Vladimir Nabokov

She is a great gobbler of books, but reads only trash, memorizing nothing and leaving out the longer descriptions.

Vladimir Nabokov

a man who has decided upon self-destruction is far removed from mundane affairs, and to sit down and write his will would be, at that moment, an act just as absurd as winding up one’s watch, since together with the man, the whole world is destroyed...

Vladimir Nabokov

Sometimes the greatest difference between being a boy and being a man is restraint.

Vladimir Nabokov

But I wasn't done," she pouted, no longer hungry for anything but him. "Yes, you were." "Yes, sir." "Lay down on your back." "Very yes, sir.

Vladimir Nabokov

Yeah, equal pay for equal work and our bodies ourselves and Gloria Steinem and all that jazz...but in that dusty dark little corner of every woman's heart where we keep our maps of Tierra del Fuego lives the hunger to fetch a powerful man his slipper...

Vladimir Nabokov

Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder not just because they are beautiful but because they are fleeting.

Vladimir Nabokov

It's easy to forget that life is the greatest gift of all

Vladimir Nabokov

Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in life and take things for granted.

Vladimir Nabokov

Believe me, when you die, it's everybody else's but your problem

Vladimir Nabokov

I've come to know that what we want in life is the greatest indication of who we really are.

Vladimir Nabokov

It is how humans are wired to remember. They either take more credit for success or more responsibility for failure than is their due.

Vladimir Nabokov

What is it with science these days? Everyone is so quick to believe in it, in all these new scientific discoveries, new pills for this, new pills for that. Get thinner, grow hair, yada, yada, yada, but when it requires a little faith in something you...

Vladimir Nabokov

Il genio è un africano che vede in sogno la neve.

Vladimir Nabokov

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in h...

Vladimir Nabokov

There's no hurt so great that love can't heal it.

Vladimir Nabokov

Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for christmas morning.Time can't be given.But it can be shared

Vladimir Nabokov

Author Bio

  • NameVladimir Nabokov
  • DescriptionRussian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor
  • BornApril 22, 1899
  • DiedJuly 2, 1977
  • CountryRussian Empire; United States Of America
  • ProfessionNovelist; Linguist; Poet; Writer; Zoologist; Translator; Playwright; Autobiographer; Educationist
  • WorksThe Defense; The Real Life Of Sebastian Knight; Lolita; Pale Fire; Speak, Memory
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship