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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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Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has it's own reason, which is not reasonable
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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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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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When we ignore the body, we are more easily victimized by it.
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Only the most naive of questions are truly serious.
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...he took a look at the blond girl's eyes and knew that he must not take part in the rigged game in which the ephemeral passes for the eternal and the small for the big, that he must not take part in the rigged game called love.
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He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.
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For he was aware of the great secret of life: Women don't look for handsome men. Women look for men who have had beautiful women. Having an ugly mistress is therefore a fatal mistake.
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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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We go through the present blindfolded... Only later, when the blindfold is removed and we examine the past, do we realize what we've been through and understand what it means.
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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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On the surface, an intelligible lie underneath, the unintelligible truth.
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Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.
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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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In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.
Milan Kundera
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Ah, ladies and gentlemen, a man lives a sad life when he cannot take anything or anyone seriously.
Milan Kundera
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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.
Milan Kundera
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Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor
Milan Kundera
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But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself?
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The moment Kafka attracts more attenetion than Joseph K., Kafka's posthumous death begins.
Milan Kundera