Quote

For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words.

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
Time
Turn
Pained
Turns
Incomprehension
Universe
Disappearing
Words
Unheard
Everyone
Unseen
Thought
Indifferent
Stills
Disappear
Still
Wants

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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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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Memory does not make films, it makes photographs.
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Sleep in my arms. Like a baby bird. Like a broom among brooms... in a broom closet. Like a tiny parrot. Like a whistle. Like a little song. A song sung by a forest... within a forest... a thousand years ago.
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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 How can anyone state categorically that a thought he once had is no longer valid?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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Any new possibility that existence acquires, even the least likely, transforms everything about existence.
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Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.
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The great European novel started out as entertainment, and every true novelist is nostalgic for it. In fact, the themes of those great entertainments are terribly serious-think of Cervantes!
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Love is a continual interrogation. I don’t know of a better definition of love.
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And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
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It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life -- and herein lies its secret -- takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch.
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When we ignore the body, we are more easily victimized by it.
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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.
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The beauty of New York is unintentional it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern.
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We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold.
Milan Kundera
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Speak truth to power.
Milan Kundera
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As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom.
Milan Kundera
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He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
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When graves are covered with stones, the dead can no longer get out. But the dead can't go out anyway! What difference does it make whether they're covered with soil or stones?
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Yes, if you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes!
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When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.
Milan Kundera