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Is not parody the eternal lot of man?

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
Parody
Eternal
Men

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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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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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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Until that time, her betrayals had filled her with excitement and joy, because they opened up new paths to new adventures of betrayal. But what if the paths came to an end? One could betray one's parents, husband, country, love, but when parents, husband, country, and love were gone - what was left to betray?
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Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist translators are more important than members of the European Parliament.
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But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.
Milan Kundera
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...no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.
Milan Kundera
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[Kafka] transformed the profoundly antipoetic material of a highly bureaucratized society into the great poetry of the novel he transformed a very ordinary story of a man who cannot obtain a promised job . . . into myth, into epic, into a kind of beauty never before seen.
Milan Kundera
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All lovers unconsciously establish their own rules of the game, which from the outset admit of no transgression.
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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The emotion of love gives all of us a misleading illusion of knowing the other.
Milan Kundera
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And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
Milan Kundera
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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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I understood that there was no escaping the memories, that I was surround by them. (p.30)
Milan Kundera
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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.
Milan Kundera
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[W]e must never allow the future to collapse under the burden of memory.
Milan Kundera
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Speak truth to power.
Milan Kundera
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Only the most naive of questions are truly serious.
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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The border between good and evil is terribly fuzzy.
Milan Kundera
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The body was a cage, and inside that cage was something which looked, listened, feared, thought and marveled that something, that remainder left over after the body had been accounted for, was the soul.
Milan Kundera