Quote

Only after a while did it occur to me (in spite of the chilly silence which surrounded me) that my story was not of the tragic sort, but rather of the comic variety. At any rate that afforded me some comfort.

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
Stories
Variety
Comic
Rate
Chilly
Comfort
Afforded
Silence
Occur
Sort
Surrounded
Story
Tragic
Rather
Spite

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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I understood that there was no escaping the memories, that I was surround by them. (p.30)
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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.
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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.
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I am not worthy of my suffering. A great sentence. It suggests not only that suffering is the basis of the self, its sole indubitable ontological proof, but also that it is the one feeling most worthy of respect the value of all values.
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Merely by being born intelligent, you right away find yourself in absolute exile.
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...[P]eople who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all... (p.24)
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For existential mathematics, which does not exist, would probably propose this equation: the value of coincidence equals the degree of its improbability.
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The love between dog and man is idyllic, dogs were never expelled from paradise.
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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.
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Yes, if you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes!
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There is no perfection only life
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Speak truth to power.
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But if God is gone and man is no longer master, then who is master?
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We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.
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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.
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Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has it's own reason, which is not reasonable
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The novel is a meditation on existence as seen through the medium of imaginary characters.
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Only the basic situations in life occur only once, never to return. For a man to be a man, he must be fully aware of this never-to-return. (p.148)
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Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being.
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Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness.
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