Nikolai Gogol, the strangest prose-poet russia ever produced, died Thursday morning, a little before eight, on the fourth of March, eighteen fifty-two, in Moscow.

— Vladimir Nabokov

Nikolai Gogol by Vladimir Nabokov @ Bookshop

Quotes

With Gogol it was a combination of two movements: a jerk and a glide. Imagine a trap door that opens under your feet with absurd suddenness, and a lyrical gust that sweeps you up and then lets you fall with a bump into the next traphole.