Rejecting the suggestion that he found himself at home in America because, like Russia, it is huge
My America is quite small, academic America, and the wild mountains where I go hunting for butterflies. And my Russia is very small. A road here, a few trees there, a sky. It is a treasure chest to which one returns again and again.
On Trinity College
It was the perfect atmosphere within which to keep up my Russian.
On America
In Paris, I worked very hard to find myself a niche. I never really succeeded. But in America, I was at home immediately.
* “Small World of Vladimir Nabokov,” The Observer, Nov. 1, 1959, 21. On VN’s first visit to England since 1939, for the launch of the British Lolita on Nov. 6.