Pale Fire

By Vladimir Nabokov QUOTATION: Gradually I regained my usual composure. I reread Pale Fire more carefully. I liked it better when expecting less. And what was that? What was that dim distant music, those vestiges of color in the air? Here and there I discovered in it and especially, especially in the invaluable variants, echoes and spangles of my mind, a long ripplewake of my glory.
ATTRIBUTION: Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Pale Fire, Commentary—Note to line 1000 (1962).

QUOTATION: I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
ATTRIBUTION: Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Pale Fire (1962).

QUOTATION: But whatever happens, wherever the scene is laid, somebody, somewhere, will quietly set out—somebody has already set out, somebody still rather far away is buying a ticket, is boarding a bus, a ship, a plane, has landed, is walking toward a million photographers, and presently he will ring at my door—a bigger, more respectable, more competent Gradus.
ATTRIBUTION: Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Pale Fire, Commentary—Note to line 1000 (1962).

QUOTATION: Although those notes, in conformity with custom, come after the poem, the reader is advised to consult them first and then study the poem with their help, rereading them of course as he goes through its text, and perhaps after having done with the poem consulting them a third time so as to complete the picture.
ATTRIBUTION: Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian-born U.S. novelist, poet. Pale Fire, “Foreword,” (1962).