Vladimir Nabokov Quotes

Civilization must be based on life. We should never forget that human life was created in and for millions of centuries, was nourished by primitive wildness. We cannot separate ourselves from this ancestral background.

What is there in thee, Moon! That thou should'st move My heart so potently?

He is dark and quiet and completely different from me, which is exactly why I should put distance between us. But it is also the reason I find him so fascinating.

She is a woman of honour and smartness whose wild leaves out luck, always taking risks, and there is something in her brow now, that only she can recognize in a mirror. Ideal and idealistic in that shiny dark hair! People fall in love with her. She is a woman I don’t know well enough to hold in my wing, if writers have wings, to harbour for the rest of my life.

There were hints of sunrise on the rim of the sky, yet it was still dark, and the traces of morning color were like goldfish swimming in ink.

Yes we are devilish; that is true we cackle. Yes we are dark like the soil and wild like the animals. And we turn to each other and stare into this darkness. We find it beautiful. We find this darkness irresistible. We cease all hiding.

If you are very lucky, you're allowed to be in certain places during just the right season of your life: by the sea for the summer when you're seven or eight and full of the absolute need to swim until dark and exhaustion close their hands together, cupping you in between.

You, have this whole tall, dark stranger thing going on. Not to mention the tortured artist bit. And you, have that whole blonde cool and collected perfect smart thing going on. You're the boy all the girls want to rebel with. You, are the unattainable girl in homeroom who never gives a guy the time of day.

There's something about watching an animal that puts you in contact with where we came from and what we're still a part of.

Yet for all the childish innocence of its bizarre glamor, Venice developed an atmosphere, or became the outpost of a sinister deep-rooted power.... It is a place of dreams, not only the tinseled ones.

When swimming into a dark tunnel,there arrives a point of no return when you no longer have enough breath to double back.your choice is to swim forward into the unknown....and pray for an exit

The wild places are where we began. When they end, so do we.

Dark and Dangerous. And all mine.

It was sad, it was sad, it was sad. When Betty came back we didn't sing or laugh, or even argue. We sat drinking in the dark, smoking cigarettes, and when we went to sleep, I didn't put my feet on her body or she on mine like we used to. We slept without touching. We had both been robbed.

I don't even know if Stephenie [Meyer] could tell you why she was so fixated on [Twilight] very, very contained story about these very obsessive characters. It's just an anomaly.

...Only physicians are likely to be regarded as competent to judge the qualifications of potential physicians, so licensing boards in the various states...are typically composed..of physicians,...members of the AMA. The boards, or the state legislatures...give the AMA the power to influence the number of persons admitted to practice (by) lengthy training,...(and) the list of 'approved' schools and hospitals (which) is generally identical with the list issued by the Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the AMA.

It's always pretty dark. It's not a farce, this is Homeland. Throughout six seasons, we've been trying to understand what it's like to be a civil servant, and the cost involved, and it's big. A lot of these people make profound sacrifices, and are very isolated and estranged from the people they love. That's a reality.

Don't go to the dark side. Don't go bashing immigrants or Muslims.

The state of mind of a fighter is so important. I don't like to see a fighter stay locked up in a room. Sometimes it works against them. They think and they worry. They dwell, sitting in that dark room. You come back and they're psyched out. I like to see boxers eat and then walk, mingle with people. You have to have a certain amount of movement.

No one wants to get up at 4 and run when it's pitch-dark, but it has to be done. The only reason i do it so early is because i believe the other guy isn't doing it and that gives me a little edge

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark little clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

What is called Western Civilization is in an advanced state of decomposition, and another Dark Ages will soon be upon us, if, indeed, it has not already begun. With the Media, especially television, governing all our lives, as they indubitably do, it is easily imaginable that this might happen without our noticing...by accustoming us to the gradual deterioration of our values.

I'm trying to think of - knock on wood - how young people would feel today if our president and our leaders were shot at. But... our young people are being killed at an astonishing rate, and times seem dark.

That dark humor has always been a part of what I've done. It's always been somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

In the Lonely Hour is about a guy that I fell in love with last year, and he didn't love me back. I think I'm over it now, but I was in a very dark place. I kept feeling lonely in the fact that I hadn't felt love before.