"Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations."
"Neither in environment nor in heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the a.non.y.muse roller that passed upon my life a certain intricate watermark whose unique design becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to shine through life's foolscap."
3 likes
Source: Vladimir Nabokov (2016). “Lolita”, p.69, 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."