“I realized that you had no power over me, that it was not you alone who were my lover but the entire earth. It was as if my soul had extended countless sensitive feelers, and I lived within everything, perceiving simultaneously Niagara Falls thundering far beyond the ocean and the long golden drops rustling and pattering in the lane.”
—Vladimir Nabokov, Sounds, from The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
“As I wander home along some silent, dark street, I like to hear a man coming home. The man himself is not visible in the darkness, and you never know beforehand which front door will come alive to accept a key with grinding condescension, swing open, pause, retained by the counterweight, slam shut; the key will grind again from the inside, and, in the depths beyond the glass pane of the door, a soft radiance will linger for one marvelous minute.”
—Vladimir Nabokov, “A Letter That Never Reached Russia”From The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
“I realised that you had no power over me, that it was not you alone who were my lover but the entire earth. It was as if my soul had extended countless sensitive feelers, and I lived within everything, perceiving simultaneously Niagara Falls thundering far beyond the ocean and the long golden drops rustling and pattering in the lane”
—Sounds, from The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov“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.” ”
—Vladimir Nabokov, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
“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.” ”
—Vladimir Nabokov, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
“Victor realized that the music, which before had seemed a narrow dungeon where, shackled together by the resonant sounds, they had been compelled to sit face-to-face some twenty feet apart, had actually been incredible bliss, a magic glass dome that had embraced and imprisoned him and her, had made it possible for him to breathe the same air as she; and now everything had been broken and scattered, she was disappearing through the door, Wolf had shut the piano, and the enchanting captivity could not be restored.”
—Vladimir Nabokov, MusicSummer break. Still recovering from finals week. Don’t have much energy for anything but lying around in pajamas and picking up my half-read Nabokov book that’s been glaring at me from my desk since January.
Quote from my brother this morning: “I have to read this for my Latin Lit. class. And now I’m realizing that ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ isn’t the title, it’s the time frame and setting needed to finish the freaking book!”
