942 Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov

Unfortunately his urge to write had suddenly petered out and he did not know what to do with himself. He was not sleepy having slept after dinner. The brandy only added to the nuisance. He was a big heavy man of the hairy sort with a somewhat Beethovenlike face. He had lost his wife in November. He had taught philosophy. He was exceedingly virile. His name was Adam Krug.

And let me not leave out the moon – for surely there must be a moon, the full, incredibly clear disc that goes so well with Russian lusty frosts. So there it comes, steering out of a flock of small dappled clouds, which it tinges with a vague iridescence; and, as it sails higher, it glazes the runner tracks left on the road, where every sparkling lump of snow is emphasized by a swollen shadow.

I dreamt of you last night – as if I was playing the piano and you were turning the pages for me.

The heating system was a farce, depending as it did on registers in the floor wherefrom the tepid exhalations of a throbbing and groaning basement furnace were transmitted to the rooms with the faintness of a moribund’s last breath.

I qualify it as pathetic. Pathetic – because despite the insatiable fire of my venereal appetite, I intended, with the most fervent force and foresight, to protect the purity of that twelve-year-old child.

Somehow, too, I remembered Chichikov’s round of weird visits in Gogol’s “Dead Souls.

I should allow only my heart to have imagination; and for the rest rely on memory, that long drawn sunset of one’s personal truth.

I love being bossed by you, but every game has its rules.

For some reason, I kept seeing it – it trembled and silkily glowed on my damp retina – a radiant child of twelve, sitting on a threshold, “pinging” pebbles at an empty can.