Famous quotes containing the word nabokov:
“Dostoevski is not a great writer, but a rather mediocre one—with flashes of excellent humor, but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“My feelings about my work are, on the whole, not unfriendly. Boundless modesty and what people call “humility” are virtues scarcely conducive to one’s complacently dwelling upon one’s own work—particularly when one lacks them.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“To the questions of the officiously meddling police Falter replied absently and tersely; but, when he finally grew tired of this pestering, he pointed out that, having accidentally solved “the riddle of the universe,” he had yielded to artful exhortation and shared that solution with his inquisitive interlocutor, whereupon the latter had died of astonishment.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)