6 Vladimir Nabokov Quotes on Writing

Vladimir Nabokov quotes on writing

6. Genius still means to me, in my Russian, fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The gift of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.

17. I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, I speak like a child.

18. My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.

22. To return to my lecturing days: I automatically gave low marks when a student used the dreadful phrase 'sincere and simple' - 'Flaubert writes with a style which is always simple and sincere' - under the impression that this was the greatest compliment payable to prose or poetry. When I struck the phrase out, which I did with such rage that it ripped the paper, the student complained that this was what teachers had always taught him: 'Art is simple, art is sincere.' Someday I must trace this vulgar absurdity to its source. A schoolmarm in Ohio? A progressive ass in New York? Because, of course, art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex.

25. If I say that Nabokov, who was educated in England... turns out to be a master of English prose - the most extraordinary phenomenon of the kind since Conrad - this is likely to sound incredible. If I say that Nabokov is something like Proust, something like Franz Kafka, and, probably something like Gogol, I shall suggest an imitative patchwork, where Nabokov is as completely himself as any of these others - a man with a unique sensibility and a unique story to tell.

31. Some say the Great American Novel is 'Huckleberry Finn,' some say it's 'The Jungle,' some say it's 'The Great Gatsby.' But my vote goes to the tale with the maximum lust, hypocrisy and obsession - the view of America that could only have come from an outsider - Nabokov's 'Lolita. ... 'Those who bought 'Lolita' looking for mere prurient kicks must surely have been disappointed. 'Lolita' is dark and twisted all right, but it's also a corruptly beautiful love story of two tragically alike, id-driven souls... What makes 'Lolita' a work of greatness isn't that its title has become ingrained in the vernacular, isn't that was a generation ahead of America in fetishizing young girls. No, it is the writing, the way Nabokov bounces around in words like the English language is a toy trunk, the sly wit, the way it's devastating and cynical and heartbreaking all at once. Poor old Dolly Haze might not have grown up very well, but 'Lolita' forever remains a thing of timeless beauty.