#Quote
More Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
We think not in words but in shadows of words.
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.
I have no desires, save the desire to express myself in defiance of all the world’s muteness.
Time is rhythm: the insect rhythm of a warm humid night, brain ripple, breathing, the drum in my temple—these are our faithful timekeepers; and reason corrects the feverish beat.
Why should I tolerate a perfect stranger at the bedside of my mind?
Oh, let me be mawkish for the nonce! I am so tired of being cynical.
Genius is finding the invisible link between things.
The future is but the obsolete in reverse.
We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless.
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.
