Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

I'm involved in so many different things, and there are so many profound reactions to what I do because I am big counter culture.

The influence of culture and arts is much larger than the influence of economy sometimes.

All the best times in music were rebellious. I mean, even like Elvis, people didn't want their daughters paying attention to him. He was considered too sexual!

Literature seemed to be everything then. People looked to it for the strength to live, for guidance, for revelation.

I am a writer and the greatest compliment I can get is to know that I've contributed language to the culture, that I've defined something, given it a name. So I think that is one of the great things a writer can do.

I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys, and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation- quite new to me, I assure you- of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one.

The Beatles were so big that it's hard for people not alive at the time to realize just how big they were.

I think it's really important that people can look at this show and be offended by it. Hopefully, then people will understand that this is still very much a problem we need to solve in other parts of the world. At least we have antibiotics.

The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.

I think part of it is the fact that they were kind of the first of its kind - there weren't a lot of cartoons for adults. People forget at the time that The Simpsons started out, it was controversial - the fact that they said "hell" and "damn" in a cartoon was a lot. America was in an uproar.

I?m much bigger in Britain than I am there. I'm well-known, but my name's That Guy in America. . . . People shout: "Hey ? I know you! You're That Guy.".

What is the big deal about Eminem? Since when is offensive language a reason for being unpopular? I like the fact that Eminem is brash and angry and politically incorrect. At least he has an opinion. He's stirring things up. He's provoking a discussion. He's making people's blood boil. He's reflecting what's going on in society right now. That is what art is supposed to do.

A few more years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron.

What's the use of being a writer if you can't irritate a great many people?

Many people see Eva Peron as either a saint or the incarnation of Satan. That means I definitely can identify with her.

When people started reading me and talking to me about the work, they didn't say how funny, or how satiric, or how brilliant, or how this or how that, they said, how'd you get away with it? How'd you get that into print?

With 300 million people in America, you can fail to impress 299 million of them and still go platinum.

Musicians have the power to influence people and along with movie makers, they can reach and influence more people than any group of people, more than scientists and certainly more than politicians.

The faults of advertising are only those common to all human institutions. If advertising speaks to a thousand in order to influence one, so does the church. And if it encourages people to live beyond their means, so does matrimony. Good times, bad times, there will always be advertising. In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times they have to.

I love "Phenomenal Woman." The experiences she had of being African American in the U.S. - that itself is a task. I appreciate the hardships Maya Angelou went through for our generation. I'm super influenced by the black people that paved the way for us.

I'm not a proponent of people watching a movie, and then going out and doing something bad. People have been doing bad things, well before movies.

So many people just have that innate thing that allows them to express themselves in a way the majority can follow. That's when you're affecting culture.

American audiences are affected by what the English people think.

If you're part of any kind of writerly community, some of those people will have gone through MFA programs, and their thinking leaks into yours. So whatever changes MFAs have made to the culture, it's to the culture as a whole. It can't be pinned down to individual books in a way that some people would like to do.