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
Was she really beautiful? Was she at least what they call attractive? She was exasperation, she was torture.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the complexity of attraction, suggesting that true beauty can often be intertwined with emotional turmoil.
In this quote, Vladimir Nabokov reflects on the ambiguous nature of beauty and attraction. The speaker questions whether the woman in question fits conventional standards of beauty, but simultaneously acknowledges that she embodies more profound qualities such as exasperation and torture, indicating that love and attraction can often lead to emotional conflict and pain.
Themes
BeautyAttractionLoveEmotionTurmoil
In practice
Example use cases
In a romantic movie discussion about complex relationships.
More from Vladimir Nabokov
All quotes βLolita, 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.
Vladimir NabokovRead
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.
Vladimir NabokovRead
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