942 Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze I cannot get out, said the starling

There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as: "honey-colored skin," "thin arms," "brown bobbed hair," "long lashes," "big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita).

I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist.

I'm thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art, And this is the only immortality that you and I may share, my Lolita.

Él me destrozó el corazón. Tú destrozaste mi vida.

..."offensive" is frequently but a synonym for "unusual"...

She was an extravagantly slender girl. Her ribs showed. The conspicuous knobs of her hipbones framed a hollowed abdomen, so flat as to belie the notion of "belly." Her exquisite bone structure immediately slipped into a novel - became in fact the secret structure of that novel, besides supporting a number of poems.

The stars that sparkled, and the cars that parkled, and the bars, and the barmen, were presently taken over by her

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.Age: five thousand three hundred days.Profession: none, or "starlet".Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?Why are you hiding, darling?(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze,I cannot get out, said the starling).