Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among spurious lives.

Vladimir Nabokov

Flesh Love Actual Letter

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There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.

Vladimir Nabokov

Activity Bath Communal Group

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The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.

Vladimir Nabokov

Evolution Nonsense Sense

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A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.

Vladimir Nabokov

World Fiction Fit Likely

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All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter. For me style is matter.

Vladimir Nabokov

Blush Contain First Matter

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Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospective: it has to be shattered before being ascertained.

Vladimir Nabokov

Mind Exists State Being

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Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.

Vladimir Nabokov

Harm Ends Feel Happy

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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.

Vladimir Nabokov

Movie Long Script Been

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I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.

Vladimir Nabokov

Pine Item After World

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The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book.

Vladimir Nabokov

Mind Admirable Good Book

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The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind.

Vladimir Nabokov

Tone Mind Gifted Author

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Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.

Vladimir Nabokov

Means Class Know Letting

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It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

James Baldwin

Allied Any Case Certain

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The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

James Baldwin

Become Begins Being Conscious

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I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

James Baldwin

America Any Any Other Country Country

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I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

James Baldwin

Because Cling Deal Forced

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Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.

James Baldwin

Doing Done Interrupted Others

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Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.

James Baldwin

Against Any Born Conspiracy

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There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

James Baldwin

Always Challenge Future Moment

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The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

James Baldwin

Accept Black Definitions Man

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Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

James Baldwin

Because Day Down Each

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American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

James Baldwin

About American American History Anyone

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To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

James Baldwin

Almost Almost All Conscious Country

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Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

James Baldwin

Anyone Ever Expensive Extremely

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People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

James Baldwin

History People Them Trapped

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Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

James Baldwin

Cannot Fear Know Live

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Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

James Baldwin

Affliction Crutch Desirable Frightening

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Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.

James Baldwin

Black Education Indoctrination White

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The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

James Baldwin

Attracted Glory Love Most

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I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

James Baldwin

Always Believed Just Negative

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Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

James Baldwin

Been Children Elders Failed

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The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.

James Baldwin

Ask Become Begin Experience

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The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

James Baldwin

Everyone Future Go Heaven

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Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

James Baldwin

Did Else Exactly Like

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Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

James Baldwin

Could Destroy Failed Hated

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I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

James Baldwin

Good Good Writer Honest Honest Man

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The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

James Baldwin

Any Calling Intimate Knowledge

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People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

James Baldwin

Allowed Become Lead Lives

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No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

James Baldwin

Come Culture Having Heavy

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To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.

James Baldwin

Bread Does Effort Force

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The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

James Baldwin

Any Creation Dangerous Lose

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The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

James Baldwin

Black Forever Holds Need

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I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

James Baldwin

Also Am Certainly Circumstance

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Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

James Baldwin

Contains Control Describing Every

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Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?

James Baldwin

Anything Anything Else Else Heaven

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Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours.

James Baldwin

Be Careful Careful Heart Set

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Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

James Baldwin

Dangerous Definition He Heart

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The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.

James Baldwin

Did End Failure Hide

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The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.

James Baldwin

Because Containing Face Invested

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It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

James Baldwin

Alive Been Books Connected

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4391 Novelist Quotes

Happy is the novelist who manages to preserve an actual love letter that he received when he was young within a work of fiction, embedded in it like a clean bullet in flabby flesh and quite secure there, among spurious lives.

Vladimir Nabokov

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.

Vladimir Nabokov

The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.

Vladimir Nabokov

A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader.

Vladimir Nabokov

All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter. For me style is matter.

Vladimir Nabokov

Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospective: it has to be shattered before being ascertained.

Vladimir Nabokov

Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.

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.

Vladimir Nabokov

I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.

Vladimir Nabokov

The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book.

Vladimir Nabokov

The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind.

Vladimir Nabokov

Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know.

Vladimir Nabokov

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

James Baldwin

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

James Baldwin

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

James Baldwin

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

James Baldwin

Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.

James Baldwin

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.

James Baldwin

There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

James Baldwin

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

James Baldwin

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

James Baldwin

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

James Baldwin

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

James Baldwin

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

James Baldwin

James Baldwin

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

James Baldwin

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

James Baldwin

James Baldwin

James Baldwin

I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

James Baldwin

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

James Baldwin

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.

James Baldwin

The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

James Baldwin

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

James Baldwin

Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

James Baldwin

James Baldwin

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

James Baldwin

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

James Baldwin

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

James Baldwin

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.