Nabokov

Famous quotes containing the word nabokov:

    Then he rang the bell and ordered a ham sandwich. When the maid placed the plate on the table, he deliberately looked away but as soon as the door had shut, he grabbed the sandwich with both hands, immediately soiled his fingers and chin with the hanging margin of fat and, grunting greedily, began to much.
    —Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past.
    —Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    Hermann and Humbert are alike only in the sense that two dragons painted by the same artist at different periods of his life resemble each other. Both are neurotic scoundrels, yet there is a green lane in Paradise where Humbert is permitted to wander at dusk once a year; but Hell shall never parole Hermann.
    —Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)