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it is wrong to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences... but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life a dimension of beauty.

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
Life
Mysterious
Chide
Daily
Deprives
Blind
Coincidences
Novel
Thereby
Beauty
Dimension
Wrong
Coincidence
Right
Dimensions
Men
Fascinated

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...people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste.
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But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself?
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A man who loses his privacy loses everything. And a man who gives it up of his own free will is a monster.
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The more vast the amount of time we've left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us to return to it.
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Ah, ladies and gentlemen, a man lives a sad life when he cannot take anything or anyone seriously.
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Business only has two functions - innovation and marketing.
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To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know how to be dead.
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Eroticism is like a dance: one always leads the other.
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I think I am a much better actor than I have allowed myself to be.
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The pressure to make public retractions of past statements - there's something medieval about it. What does it mean, anyway, to 'retract' what you've said? How can anyone state categorically that a thought he once had is no longer valid? In modern times an idea can be refuted, yes, but not retracted.
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we might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. he is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down.
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