In a sense, we are all crashing to our death from the top story of our birth to the flat stones of the churchyard and wondering with an immortal Alice in Wonderland at the patterns of the passing wall.

—Vladimir Nabokov

attention death birth

About Vladimir Nabokov

Portrait of Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Набо́ков [vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ nɐˈbokəf] ; 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899 – 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (Владимир Сирин), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist.

More quotations from Vladimir Nabokov

My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.

—Vladimir Nabokov

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

—Vladimir Nabokov

Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.

—Vladimir Nabokov

A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.

—Vladimir Nabokov

The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.

—Vladimir Nabokov

More quotations tagged with “birth”

Somewhere in the world at that moment, there was a birth, a death, a sunrise, and a sunset. There was despair, and a burst of laughter, a promise broken, and a vow made.
And there was this kiss.

—Lydia Kang in A Beautiful Poison

laughter death despair birth sunset sunrise

You can live without anything you weren't born with, and you can make it through on even half of that.

—Gloria Naylor

survival necessity birth

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

—George Bernard Shaw

politics birth patriotism loyalty

To my embarrassment I was born in bed with a lady.

—Wilson Mizner

Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped.

—Sam Levenson