Pnin
Goodreads ratings
3.89 / 5

"Pnin" Quotes

By Vladimir Nabokov

fiction | 176 pages | Published in 2012

ISBN_13: 9783644056510
ISBN_10: 364405651X

Quotes

The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed to be aware of it.

Vladimir Nabokov

Life invariably takes place in an idiom not of our choosing.

Vladimir Nabokov

Sorrow and solitude seemed to be the lot of all Russians, and there was some comfort in the general nature of his predicament.

Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov...the name suggested some exiled member of a royal house of letters.

Vladimir Nabokov

For in his friendships he was capable not only of genuine faithfulness but also of such zeal and diabolical inventiveness in lying about and betraying his rivals as might have amused Lord Rochester or Regency Buck.

Vladimir Nabokov

In his work, in his life, in his loves, in his own mind, he was forever asking a question, and the response he would get was not an answer but another question.

Vladimir Nabokov

Pnin disliked conflict and avoided it when he could.

Vladimir Nabokov

Even when the woman was in a hospital bed, a few feet away from him, about to undergo an operation that might eventually leave her alive and well...older, with some of her energy and strength gone, but alive and well and able to enjoy her life...even then he did not like her.

Vladimir Nabokov

It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.

Vladimir Nabokov

The past is like a new coat of paint. It dries quickly, conceals completely, but does nothing for the underlying structure.

Vladimir Nabokov