Vladimir Nabokov Quotes - Page 15

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• It is strange how a memory will grow into a wax figure, how the cherub grows suspiciously prettier as its frame darkens with age-strange, strange are the mishaps of memory.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Memories, Age, Strange

  Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Scammell (1963). “The gift”

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• In this crazy mirror of terror and art a pseudo-quotation made up of obscure Shakespeareanisms (Chapter Three) somehow produces, despite its lack of literal meaning, the blurred diminutive image of the acrobatic performance that so gloriously supplies the bravura ending for the next chapter.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Art, Crazy, Mirrors

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1996). “Novels and Memoirs, 1941-1951”, Library of America

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• Derivative writers seem versatile because they imitate many others, past and present. Artistic originality has only itself to copy.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Past, Derivatives, Originality

  1967 Interview in the Paris Review, Summer.

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• She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her.

  Vladimir Nabokov

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• Coordinating there Events and objects with remote events And vanished objects. Making ornaments Of accidents and possibilities.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Events, Ornaments, Possibility

  Vladimir Nabokov (2011). “Pale Fire”, p.63, Vintage

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• Religion has the same relation to man's heavenly condition that mathematics has to his earthly one: both the one and the other are merely the rules of the game. Belief in God and belief in numbers: local truth and truth of location.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Men, Numbers, Games

  Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Scammell (1963). “The gift”

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• …She was, obviously, one of those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or bridge club, or any other deadly conventionality, but never her soul.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Book, Bridges, Soul

  Vladimir Nabokov (2016). “Lolita”, p.19, Hamilton Books

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• The social or economic structure of the ideal state is of little concern to me. My desires are modest. Portraits of the head of the government should not exceed a postage stamp in size. No torture and no executions. No music, except coming through earphones, or played in theaters. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of art.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Art, Government, Freedom Of Speech

  Interview with Alvin Toffler, reprints.longform.org. January 1964.

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• A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world. In order to do this adequately, avoiding duplication of labor, the artist should know the given world.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Artist, Order, Creating

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• I do not begin my novel at the beginning, I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four, I do not go dutifully from one page to the next, in consecutive order; no, I pick out a bit here and a bit there, till I have filled all the gaps on paper. This is why I like writing my stories and novels on index cards, numbering them later when the whole set is complete. Every card is rewritten many times.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Writing, Order, Three

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• At a very early stage of the novel's development I get this urge to collect bits of straw and fluff, and to eat pebbles. Nobody will ever discover how clearly a bird visualizes, or if it visualizes at all, the future nest and the eggs in it.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Eggs, Bird, Development

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1973). “Strong opinions”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• Freudism and all it has tainted with its grotesque implications and methods, appear to me to be one of the vilest deceits practiced by people on themselves and on others. I reject it utterly, along with a few other medieval items still adored by the ignorant, the conventional, or the very sick.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  People, Sick, Ignorant

  Interview with Alvin Toffler, reprints.longform.org. January 1964.

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• No difference exists between American and European manners. A proletarian from Chicago can be just as Philistine as an English duke.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Differences, Chicago, Dukes

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• My characters are galley slaves.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Character, Slave

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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