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...[P]eople who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all... (p.24)

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
Rooftops
Shout
Saddest
Joy
Often

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together.
Milan Kundera
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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.
Milan Kundera
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Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has it's own reason, which is not reasonable
Milan Kundera
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There is such a thing as everyday, ordinary, vulgar ecstasy the ecstasy of anger, the ecstasy of speed at the wheel, the ecstasy of ear-splitting noise, ecstasy in the soccer stadium.
Milan Kundera
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Kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.
Milan Kundera
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Disgust at having to talk about oneself is what distinguishes novelistic talent from lyric talent.
Milan Kundera
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No one can get really drunk on a novel or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Reethoven's Ninth, Rartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, or the Reatles' White Album?
Milan Kundera
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Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses: an individual observes his partner intently, straining to catch every sound.
Milan Kundera
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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.
Milan Kundera
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The river flowed from century to century, and human affairs play themselves out on its banks. Play themselves out to be forgotten the next day, while the river flows on.
Milan Kundera
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Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud.
Milan Kundera
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Facts mean little compared to attitudes. To contradict rumor or sentiment is as futile as arguing against a believer's faith in the Immaculate Conception. You have simply become a victim of faith, Comrade Assistant.
Milan Kundera
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To be a writer does not mean to preach a truth, it means to discover a truth.
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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The reign of imagagology begins where history ends.
Milan Kundera
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The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty.
Milan Kundera
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God has been kind to dogs in no putting a sense of beauty into their heads.
Milan Kundera
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Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.
Milan Kundera
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There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.
Milan Kundera
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Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something - love - from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company.
Milan Kundera