He was afraid of touching his own wrist. He never attempted to sleep on his left side, even in those dismal hours of the night when the insomniac longs for a third side after trying the two he has. ― Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin. (Heinemann 1957)
Consciousness is a message scribbled in the dark. — Vladimir Nabokov, from Pale Fire, “Canto Two.” (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1962, corrected edition first published by Vintage International, 1989)
Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the gladiator. Don’t stop to think, don’t interrupt the scream, exhale, release life’s rapture. — Vladimir Nabokov
We think not in words but in shadows of words. — Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions (McGraw-Hill, 1973)
. . . as I have said often enough, I write for myself in multiplicate, a not unfamiliar phenomenon on the horizon of shimmering deserts. — Vladimir Nabokov
And meanwhile, outside the door, waits my faithful, my lonely night… — Vladimir Nabokov, from “A Letter that Never Reached Russia,” The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995)
You came into my life — not as one comes to visit … but as one comes to a kingdom where all the rivers have been waiting for your reflection, all the roads, for your steps. — Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Véra, ed. and transl. Olga Voronina and Brian Boyd (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014)
–and it seemed to him that happiness itself had that smell, the smell of dead leaves. — , from “The Return of Chorb,” The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995)
I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist. — Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire: A Poem in Four Cantos (Putnam, 1962)
For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist. — Vladimir Nabokov, The Eye (Phaedra, 1965)Originally published 1930.
