Vladimir Nabokov quotes

Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist, poet, and translator, renowned for his complex literary style and inventive narratives. His novel "Lolita" became a controversial classic and solidified his place in world literature. He captivated readers with his intricate language, deep psychological insight, and playful use of literary devices. Here are 254 of his quotes:

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.

Vladimir Nabokov

The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.

Vladimir Nabokov

Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.

Vladimir Nabokov

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

Vladimir Nabokov

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.

Vladimir Nabokov

Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.

Vladimir Nabokov

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

Vladimir Nabokov

Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.

Vladimir Nabokov

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.

Vladimir Nabokov

Loneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.

Vladimir Nabokov

All religions are based on obsolete terminology.

Vladimir Nabokov

Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.

Vladimir Nabokov

Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.

Vladimir Nabokov

It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

Vladimir Nabokov

You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Vladimir Nabokov

It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.

Vladimir Nabokov

I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.

Vladimir Nabokov

We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.

Vladimir Nabokov

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.

Vladimir Nabokov

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.

Vladimir Nabokov

I know more than I can express in words, and the little I can express would not have been expressed, had I not known more.

Vladimir Nabokov

Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.

Vladimir Nabokov