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A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality.

Milan Kundera

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Milan Kundera
Age: 95
Born: 1929
Born: April 1
Author
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Brünn
Existence
Uncover
Knowledge
Segment
Doe
Hitherto
Immoral
Unknown
Ethics
Morality
Novel

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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For the body is temporal and thought is eternal and the shimmering essence of flame is an image of thought.
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loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.
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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
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People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.
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The source of anxiety lies in the future. If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget your worries.
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To be a writer does not mean to preach a truth, it means to discover a truth.
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People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it has to be played louder still.
Milan Kundera
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Isn't beer the holy libation of sincerity? The potion that dispels all hypocrisy, any charade of fine manners? The drink that does nothing worse than incite its fans to urinate in all innocence, to gain weight in all frankness?
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He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.
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Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses: an individual observes his partner intently, straining to catch every sound.
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The degree of slowness is directionally proportional to the intensity of memory. The degree of speed is directionally proportional to the intensity of forgetting.
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Why don't you ever use your strength on me? she said. Because love means renouncing strength, said Franz softly.
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We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold.
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We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same we feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing the “Es muss sein!” to our own great love.
Milan Kundera
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In the world of highways, a beautiful landscape means: an island of beauty connected by a long line with other islands of beauty.
Milan Kundera
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What is unique about the I hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual I is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered, conquered.
Milan Kundera
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Is not parody the eternal lot of man?
Milan Kundera
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Leroy interrupted Chantal's fantasies: Freedom? As you live our your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom. You're free to melt your own individuality into the cauldron of the multitude either with a feeling of defeat or euphoria.
Milan Kundera
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I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be.
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The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.
Milan Kundera