Jay Livingston: "The episode of “Happyish” that Jansy Mello spotted a few days ago, the one with the title "Starring Vladimir Nabokov, Hippocrates and God," had one fleeting reference [   ]

“But why can't we give them real problems? And I’m not saying that, you know, J. J. should get cancer or that Mom should discover that she's got early-onset Alzheimer's or something like that.”
“But what I’m saying is Nabokov says you put the characters up in a tree and then you throw rocks at ’em, right? I mean, look, they want reality, let’s give ’em reality, huh?”

Where did Nabokov say this?

Jansy Mello: I feel a little responsible for having mentioned "Happyish" at the VN-List ( but it was worth to try). This is why I looked for something related to this reference as an amend and, during my search, I found a link with the transcripts of the aforementioned episode with another entry with a Nabokov quote. That one was easy to find ( I mean, a set of similar words, not really a quote): C.K in Pale Fire.*

102. Oh, boy. Thom's voice: "Dear Jesus," Nabokov wrote, "do something." Oh, shit! I'm so sorry. It's okay, honey. Don't worry. (Read more at: http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=266&t=18361)

I finally remembered where I’d read something about the creation of a “literary hero”. “Despair”, chapter one, Hermann Hermann’s words ( I don’t think Nabokov would have fully agreed):  

“ An author’s fondest dream is to turn the reader into a spectator; is this ever attained? The pale organisms of literary heroes feeding under the author’s supervision swell gradually with the reader’s lifeblood; so that the genius of a writer consists in giving them the faculty to adapt themselves to that—not very appetizing—food and thrive on it, sometimes for centuries.

…………………………………………………………………………………

* Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith

"…the prisonlike edifice containing our classrooms and offices (to be called from now on Shade Hall), the famous avenue of all the trees mentioned by Shakespeare, a distant droning sound, the hint of a haze, the turquoise dome of the Observatory, wisps and pale plumes of cirrus, and the poplar-curtained Roman-tiered football field, deserted on summer days except for a dreamy-eyed youngster flying — on a long control line in a droning circle — a motor-powered model plane.

Dear Jesus, do something."