God does not exist, as neither does our hereafter, that second bogey being as easily disposed of as the first. Indeed, imagine yourself just dead–and suddenly wide awake in Paradise where, wreathed in smiles, your dear dead welcome you. Now tell me, please, what guarantee do you possess that those beloved ghosts are genuine; that it is really your dear dead mother and not some petty demon mystifying you, masked as your mother and impersonating her with consummate art and naturalness? There is the rub, there is the horror; the more so as the acting will go on and on, endlessly; never, never, never, never, never will your soul in that other world be quite sure that the sweet gentle spirits crowding about it are not fiends in disguise, and forever, and forever, and forever shall your soul remain in doubt, expecting every moment some awful change, some diabolical sneer to disfigure the dear face bending over you. Vladimir Nabokov
Some Similar Quotes
  1. You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth. - William W. Purkey

  2. Do people look the same when they go to heaven, mommy?"" I don't know. I don't think so."" Then how do people recognize each other?"" I don't know, sweetie. They just feel it. You don't need your eyes to love, right? - R.J. Palacio

  3. I think Heaven will be like a first kiss. - Sarah Addison Allen

  4. Earth's crammed with heaven... But only he who sees, takes off his shoes. - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  5. Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish–a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow–to sleep late, have fun,... - Hunter S. Thompson

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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