Shane Zhang

“Mnemosyne, one must admit, has shown herself to be a very careless girl.”
― Vladimir Nabokov , Speak, Memory

“Neither in environment nor in heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me, the anonymous roller that pressed upon my life a certain intricate watermark whose unique design becomes visible when the lamp of art is made to shine through life's foolscap.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

“How small the cosmos (a kangaroo's pouch would hold it), how paltry and puny in comparison to human consciousness, to a single individual recollection, and its expression in words!”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

“She had spent all her life in feeling miserable; this misery was her native element; its fluctuations, its varying depths, alone save her the impression of moving and living. What bothers me is that a sense of misery, and nothing else, is not enough to make a permanent soul. My enormous and morose Mademoiselle is all right on earth but impossible in eternity.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory