Vladimir Nabokov Quotes - Page 15

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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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• 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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• I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood - or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Stars, Children, Believe

  Vladimir Nabokov (2011). “The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated”, p.263, Vintage

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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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• Use unlikely materials. Who would choose Pnin as hero, but how did we live before Pnin?

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Life, Hero, Use

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• Adultery is a most conventional way to rise above the conventional.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Way, Adultery, Rise Above

  Lectures on Literature "Madame Bovary" (1980)

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

  Vladimir Nabokov

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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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• It was an interesting thing to do. Why did I write any of my books, after all? For the sake of the pleasure, for the sake of the difficulty. I have no social purpose, no moral message; I've no general ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Book, Writing, Ideas

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

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• And this is the only immortality you and i may share, my Lolita.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  May, Immortality, Share

  Vladimir Nabokov (2016). “Lolita”, p.171, Hamilton Books

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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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