From his earliest years Cincinnatus, by some strange and happy chance comprehending his danger, carefully managed to conceal a certain peculiarity. He was impervious to the rays of others, and therefore produced when off his guard a bizarre impression, as of a lone dark obstacle in the world of souls transparent to one other; he learned however to feign translucence, employing a complex system of optical illusions, as it were--but he had only to forget himself, to allow a momentary lapse in self control, in the manipulation of cunningly illuminated facets and angles at which he turned his soul, and immediately there was alarm. In the midst of the excitement of a game his coevals would suddenly forsake him, as if they had sensed that his lucid gaze and the azure of his temples were but a crafty deception and that actually Cincinnatus was opaque. Sometimes, in the midst of sudden silence, the teacher, in a chagrined perplexity, would gather up all the reserves of skin around his eyes, gaze at him for a long while and finally say: "What is wrong with you, Cincinnatus?" Then Cincinnatus would take hold of himself, and, clutching his own self to his breast, would remove that self to a safe place. . Vladimir Nabokov
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  2. By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two together in their sleep will defeat the darkness - Pablo Neruda
  3. We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very... - E.m. Forster
  4. How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole - C.g. Jung
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More Quotes By Vladimir Nabokov
  1. It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.
  2. I think it is all a matter of love the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes
  3. I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her —after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred— I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness...
  4. Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.
  5. Human life is but a series of footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece
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