"Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations."
"Although I could never get used to the constant state of anxiety in which the guilty, the great, and the tenderhearted live, I felt I was doing my best in the way of mimicry."
7 likes
Source: Vladimir Nabokov (2016). “Lolita”, p.103, Hamilton Books
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
"And the rest is rust and stardust."
"Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards."
"Toska - noun /ˈtō-skə/ - Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness. "No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom."
"Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars."
"Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form."