Quotations From VLADIMIR NABOKOV

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• 21.

  The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Lectures on Russian Literature, ch. I (1981).
  
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• 22.

  Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of cliches.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Lolita, afterword (1955).
• 23.

  A pale self-portrait looked out of the mirror with the serious eyes of all self-portraits.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. The Gift, ch. 3 (1963).
  
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• 24.

  Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Lolita, afterword (1955).
• 25.

  Mr. Goodman's large soft pinkish face was, and is, remarkably like a cow's udder.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, ch. 6 (1941). Of the rival biographer of Sebastian Knight.
• 26.

  At fifteen I visualized myself as a world-famous author of seventy with a mane of wavy white hair. Today I am practically bald.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. The New York Times, interview (1971). On being asked how far his youthful expectations had been fulfilled.
  
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• 27.

  I cannot conceive how anybody in his right mind should go to a psychoanalyst.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Life, interview (1964).
• 28.

  Oh Lolita, you are my girl, as Vee was Poe's and Bea Dante's, and what little girl would not like to whirl in a circular skirt and scanties?

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Lolita, pt. I, ch. 25.
  
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• 29.

  Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Paris Review, interview (Oct. 1967). On being asked whether there were significant disadvantages to his present fame.
• 30.

  A special feature of the structure of our book is the monstrous but perfectly organic part that eavesdropping plays in it.

  Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. A Hero of Our Time, foreword (1958).