More Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses.
Which arrow flies for ever? The arrow that has hit its mark.
...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life.
Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.
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.
It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.
Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
The contemplation of beauty, whether it be a uniquely tinted sunset, a radiant face, or a work of art, makes us glance back unwittingly at our personal past and juxtapose ourselves and our inner being with the utterly unattainable beauty revealed to us.
Words without experience are meaningless.
Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
