My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.
Vladimir NabokovRead
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.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that literature emerges from the power of imagination, rather than just reality.
Vladimir Nabokov's quote highlights the essence of literature as a creative endeavor that transcends mere factual storytelling. It underscores the idea that true literary expression is born not from the presence of actual events, but from the ability to evoke emotion and provoke thought through the narrative, even when the stories told are entirely fictional or metaphorical.
In practice
During a literary discussion about the nature of fiction, one might quote Nabokov to emphasize the importance of creativity.
My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
But that mimosa grove-the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since-until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.
...in my dreams the world would come alive, becoming so captivatingly majestic, free and ethereal, that afterwards it would be oppressive to breathe the dust of this painted life.
I believe the poor fierce-eyed child had figured out that with a mere fifty dollars in her purse she might somehow reach Broadway or Hollywood - or the foul kitchen of a diner (Help Wanted) in a dismal ex-prairie state, with the wind blowing, and the stars blinking, and the cars, and the bars, and the barmen, and everything soiled, torn, dead.
So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one's days.
If I go into a studio and find my truth of the moment, there are a number of people in the world who can relate to what I'm saying and are going to buy into what I'm doing. Not because it's the new thing of the moment, but because it's genuine emotion. Its how I feel. This is how I articulate the world.
Movies, they take years of my life, so I'm fortunate that I get to work in a lot of different mediums.
I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridised.
You say a new era in art is preparing; you sensed it coming; continue your studies without weakening. God will do the rest.
Animation is the one type of movie that really does play for the entire audience. Our challenge is to make stories that connect for kids and adults.
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