Vladimir Nabokov

“Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.”

“No author has created with less emphasis such pathetic characters as Chekhov has.”

“Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.”

“There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.”

“Imagination, the supreme delight of the immortal and the immature, should be limited. In order to enjoy life, we should not enjoy it too much.”

“Nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity.”

“Turning one's novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches for a painting that has long ago been finished and framed.”

“Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.”

“I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers and, generally, persons who move their lips when reading.”

“It is a short walk from the hallelujah to the hoot.”

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.”

“Poetry involves the mysteries of the irrational perceived through rational words.”

“Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.”

“Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution.”

“The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind.”

“I cannot conceive how anybody in his right mind should go to a psychoanalyst.”

“Life is a great sunrise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.”