nabokovlolita-blog

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We must distinguish between ‘sentimental’ and ‘sensitive’. A sentimentalist may be a perfect brute in his free time. A sensitive person is never a cruel person.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature

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The summer night was starless and stirless, with distant spasms of silent lightning.

Vladimir Nabokov - from Pale Fire (via watchoutforintellect)

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♀ literary character aesthetic (1/7) - dolores “lolita” haze 

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or “starlet”

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actually terrifying covers for Lolita: Max Temesu & Linn Olofsdotter

“Lolita is not about love, because love is always mutual; Lolita is about obsession, which is never, ever love, and Nabokov himself was so disappointed that people did not understand this and take away the right message… For how could anyone call this feeding frenzy of selfishness, devouring, and destruction ‘love’?“ - Vanity Fair’s Gregor von Rezzori

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Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

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"I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality that you and I may share, my Lolita."

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Vladimir Nabokov

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I want you to come live with me, and die with me, and everything with me.

Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

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Vladimir Nabokov, On Translating “Eugene Onegin” 

(originally published in the New Yorker, January 8, 1955) 

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A quote that never fails to fill me with joy: Nabokov on how to read. From lectures on Russian literature.

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Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor

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One night between sunset and river On the old bridge we stood, you and I, Will you ever forget it, I queried, That particular swift that went by? And you answered, so earnestly: Never! And what sobs made us suddenly shiver, What a cry life emitted in flight! Till we die, till tomorrow, for ever, You and I on the old bridge one night.

Vladimir Nabokov, The Swift

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INTERVIEWER: In what time would you prefer to live?

NABOKOV: In the coming days of silent planes and graceful aircycles, and cloudless silvery skies, and a universal system of padded underground roads to which trucks shall be relegated like Morlocks. As to the past, I would not mind retrieving from various corners of space-time certain lost comforts, such as baggy trousers and long, deep bathtubs.

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In spite of everything I loved you, and will go on loving you—on my knees, with my shoulders drawn back, showing my heels to the headsman and straining my goose neck—even then. And afterwards—perhaps most of all afterwards—I shall love you, and one day we shall have a real, all-embracing explanation, and then perhaps we shall somehow fit together, you and I, and turn ourselves in such a way that we form one pattern, and solve the puzzle: draw a line from point A to point B…without looking, or, without lifting the pencil…or in some other way…we shall connect the points, draw the line, and you and I shall form that unique design for which I yearn. If they do this kind of thing to me every morning, they will get me trained and I shall become quite wooden.

Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading