How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I tried to put myself into the same ecstatically reminiscent mood in regard to my student years as during those years I had experienced in regard to my boyhood, but all I could evoke were fragmentary little pictures… (13.5.3)
Kids get excited about the littlest things: happy meals, getting the right color carpet square for nap time, and being allowed to stay up an extra half hour. Why is it that it becomes harder to get excited as you get older?
Quote #8
Although powerless to do much about it, you and I jointly kept a jealous eye on any possible rift between his childhood and our own incunabula in the opulent past… (15.2.1)
Sure, Nabokov. Why not name-check ancient printed matter when comparing your son's childhood to your own?
Quote #9
It might be rewarding to go into the phylogenetic aspects of the passion male children have for things on wheels, particularly railway trains...Rapid growth, quantum-quick thought, the roller coaster of the circulatory system—all forms of vitality are forms of velocity, and no wonder a growing child desires to out-Nature Nature by filling a minimum stretch of time with a maximum of spatial enjoyment. (15.2.4)
Here Nabokov is able to observe his own childhood and his son's at the same time: is it that all boys are obsessed with wheeled things, or is it the Nabokov boys in particular? Do you agree with connecting wheels to velocity? And what does velocity have to do with growing up?