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Mary
Vladimir Nabokov
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.”
“He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire. He could not even make himself stretch out his hand to switch on the light. The simple transition from intention to action seemed an unimaginable miracle.”
“...memory can restore to life everything except smells, although nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.”
“The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting.”
“Where is the happiness, the sunshine, where are those thick skittles of wood which crashed and bounced so nicely, where is my bicycle with the low handlebars and the big gear? It seems there's a law which says that nothing ever vanishes, that matter is indestructible; therefore the chips from my skittles and the spokes of my bicycle still exist somewhere to this day. The pity of it is that I'll never find them again - never.”
“He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire.”
“emotions of that kind ought to be more restrained, without violet irises and crying violins.”
“I put everything into my poetry that I should have put into my life, and now it's too late for me to start all over again. The only thought that occurs to me at the moment is that in the final reckoning it's better to have been sanguine by temperament, a man of action, and if you must get drunk do it properly and smash the place up.”
“It had lasted no more than four days—four days which were perhaps the happiest days of his life. But now he had exhausted his memories, was sated by them, and the image of Mary, together with that of the old dying poet, now remained in the house of ghosts, which itself was already a memory. Other than that image no Mary existed, nor could exist.”
“And when he went to bed and listened to the trains passing through that cheerless house in which lived several Russian lost shades, the whole of life seemed like a piece of film-making where heedless extras knew nothing of the picture in which they were taking part.”
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Book Keywords:
memories, expectancy, growing-up, remembrance, repetition, nostalgic, desire, hope, spring, idleness, remembering, life, seasons, childhood, craving, lost-love, boredom, dreams, nostalgia, wanderlust, melancholy