I had some free time today to track these
down. Hopefully it is of some help to you.
-Vladimir Nabokov
#2 a similar concept is expressed by Nabokov's
contemporary Bertolt Brecht:
- Bertolt Brecht
#3 is authentic
From the Pale Fire commentary to lines 939-940:
"If I correctly understand the sense of this succinct observation,
our poet suggests here that human life is but a series of
footnotes to a vast obscure unfinished masterpiece."
"Only the birds are able to throw off their
shadow./ The shadow always stays behind on earth.// Our
imagination flies:/ we are its shadow, on the earth."
qtd. in The Sea and the Honeycomb by Robert Bly, attributed to
Vladimir Nabokov
#5 is authentic, though slightly altered
"The strain was beginning to tell. If a violin
string can ache, the I was that string."
#6 seems to come from elsewhere:
"After getting feedback for a story idea from his artists, he
isolated himself to map it out over 13 weeks of dailies and Sundays
(1953 article), with the playwriting formula 'First act, get your
leading character up a tree; second act, throw rocks at him; third
act, get him down.'"
I don't know if it originates with Allen Saunders, but it seems to
be a well-known writing formula already at the time
#7 seems to be authentic
It comes from a recollection of one of Nabokov's former students:
http://books.google.com/books?id=B984tEUYUgsC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=Caress+the+detail,+the+divine+detail+AND+nabokov&source=bl&ots=RcJoJeDKiX&sig=SW0oVkEufqDjAQmR-2QpS09pNgE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=N9IhVOijOo3qoASRy4CgAg&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Caress%20the%20detail%2C%20the%20divine%20detail%20AND%20nabokov&f=false
"a former student recalls him saying 'Caress the details ... the
divine details.'"
Source: Ross Wetzsteon. "Nabokov as Teacher." Triquarterly 17
(1970): 245.
Joseph Schlegel
PhD Candidate
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Toronto