A Quote by Vladimir Nabokov

Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.

Vladimir Nabokov

Quote Topics

Existence Footnotes Masterpiece Obscure Series Unfinished Vast

Quote Author

Vladimir Nabokov
American - Novelist
April 22, 1899 - July 2, 1977

If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation, our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece.

Vladimir Nabokov

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

Alfred North Whitehead

Sometimes it seems like there's more footnotes than text. This isn't something we're proud of, and over time we'd like to see our footnotes steadily shrink.

Barry Diller

If I may bend your ear for a moment, I like Terry Pratchett. I like footnotes. I like footnotes even when they are not as entertaining as a Pratchett footnote, even when they are in the middle of a book on evolutionary biology and briefly explain the Red Queen hypothesis or the fate of the Stephen's Island Wren or how many bunnies can dance on the back of Australia. Footnotes fill me with a very mild glee. The endnote simply does not compare.

Ursula Vernon

I've discovered I love the vast landscape a series offers. I tend to write long anyway, so, it turns out, series gives me the perfect vehicle for writing 'large' stories.

Mary E. Pearson

We inhabit an obscure planet, in an obscure galaxy, around an obscure sun, but on the other hand, modern human society represents one of the most complex things we know.

David Christian

I always believed that my work should be unfinished in the sense that I encourage people to add their creativity to it, either conceptually or physically. Back in the 1960s, I was calling for 'Unfinished Music,' number one, and number two, with my artwork - I was taking unfinished work into the gallery. And that's how I was looking at it.

Yoko Ono

There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

Carson McCullers

You are carrying a masterpiece hidden within you, but you are standing in the way. Just move aside, then the masterpiece will be revealed. Everyone is a masterpiece, because God never gives birth to anything less than that. Everyone carries that masterpiece hidden for many lives, not knowing who they are and just trying on the surface to become someone. Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it. God himself has created you; you cannot be improved.

Rajneesh

Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure. To find something obscure poses no difficult, elephants and poodles find many things obscure.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

When I was growing up, I was the most pretentious person I have ever met. I only read obscure books and watched obscure movies and only listened to obscure music.

Moby

I never want projects to be finished; I have always believed in unfinished work. I got that from Schubert, you know, the 'Unfinished Symphony.'

Yoko Ono

We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock.

Carl Sagan

I believe in the supreme excellence of righteousness; I believe that the law of righteousness will triumph in the universe over all evil; I believe that in the attempt to fulfil the law of righteousness, however imperfect it must remain, are to be found the inspiration, the consolation, and the sanctification of human existence. We live in order to finish an, as yet, unfinished universe, unfinished so far as the human, that is, the highest part of it, is concerned. We live in order to develop the superior qualities of man which are, as yet, for the most part latent.