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

What this quote means

The quote expresses a preference for realism over idealism, suggesting that true happiness can feel disingenuous.

Vladimir Nabokov's quote captures a sentiment that some individuals find comfort in acknowledging life's challenges and emotional struggles, seeing them as an authentic experience rather than the conventional notion of a 'happy ending.' The speaker feels that the prevalence of harm and suffering in life makes artificial resolutions and joyful conclusions seem unearned or dishonest, thus prompting a contemplation of the complexities of human emotion and the nature of storytelling.

Themes

HappinessRealismSufferingPhilosophyStorytelling

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the complexity of emotions in literature, this quote can illustrate the depth of character experiences.

More from Vladimir Nabokov

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.
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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.
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A change of environment is the traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.
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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.
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...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.
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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.
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