11 Quotes on Writing by Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator and entomologist. His best known works include Lolita, Pale Fire and Pnin.

Vladimir Nabokov on Writing

“Style is not a tool, it is not a method, it is not a choice of words alone. Being much more than all this, style constitutes an intrinsic component or characteristic of the author's personality.”

#228

Vladimir Nabokov

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.”

#346

Vladimir Nabokov

“The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.”

#665

Vladimir Nabokov

“A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.”

#666

Vladimir Nabokov

“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”

#667

Vladimir Nabokov

“Style and structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.”

#668

Vladimir Nabokov

“The thought, when written down, becomes less oppressive, but some thoughts are like a cancerous tumor: you express is, you excise it, and it grows back worse than before.”

#669

Vladimir Nabokov

“Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf" came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him.”

#670

Vladimir Nabokov

“Turning one's novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches for a painting that has long ago been finished and framed.”

#671

Vladimir Nabokov

“I do not begin my novel at the beginning, I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four, I do not go dutifully from one page to the next, in consecutive order; no, I pick out a bit here and a bit there, till I have filled all the gaps on paper. This is why I like writing my stories and novels on index cards, numbering them later when the whole set is complete. Every card is rewritten many times.”

#672

Vladimir Nabokov

“A major writer combines these three - storyteller, teacher, enchanter - but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him a major writer.”

#673

Vladimir Nabokov

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