Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Nabokov

One of the things I look for most in literature is unique and original observations about the world that stir my latent thoughts, memories, and ideas:



He used to say, I know, that fast girls had slow minds, and that there could be nothing duller than a pretty woman who likes fun.

-Vladimir Nabokov “The Real Life of Sebastian Knight” p149

Most people live through the day with this or that part of their mind in a happy state of somnolence: a hungry man eating his steak is interested in his food and not say, in the memory of a dream about angels wearing top hats which he happened to see seven years ago: but in my case all the shutters and lids and doors of the mind would be open at once at all times of the day[...]Every ordinary act[...]took on such a complicated appearance, provoked such a multitude of associative ideas in my mind, and these associations were so tricky and obscure, so utterly useless for practical application that I would either shirk the business at hand or make a mess of it out of sheer nervousness.

Ibid p.87

No comments: