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The novel is a meditation on existence as seen through the medium of imaginary characters.
Milan Kundera
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Milan Kundera
Age: 95
Born: 1929
Born: April 1
Author
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
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University Teacher
Writer
Brünn
Medium
Mediums
Characters
Meditation
Novel
Seen
Existence
Character
Imaginary
More quotes by Milan Kundera
The important thing is to abide by the rule of threes. Either you see a woman three times in quick succession and then never again, or you maintain relations over the years but make sure that the rendezvous are at least three weeks apart.
Milan Kundera
...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.
Milan Kundera
She was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then. The sadness meant: We are at the last station. The happiness meant: We are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.
Milan Kundera
We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold.
Milan Kundera
Immortality no longer interests the weary old man at all.
Milan Kundera
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight.
Milan Kundera
Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!
Milan Kundera
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.
Milan Kundera
Even in the game there lurks a lack of freedom even in a game is a trap for the players.
Milan Kundera
The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.
Milan Kundera
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.
Milan Kundera
Merely by being born intelligent, you right away find yourself in absolute exile.
Milan Kundera
...people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste.
Milan Kundera
The love between dog and man is idyllic, dogs were never expelled from paradise.
Milan Kundera
Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry.
Milan Kundera
The moment Kafka attracts more attenetion than Joseph K., Kafka's posthumous death begins.
Milan Kundera
Tell me, where in life is there a value that would make us consider suicide uncalled for on principle! Love? Or friendship? I guarantee that friendship is not a bit less fickle than love and it is impossible to build anything on it. Self-love? I wish it were possible.
Milan Kundera
Which doesn't mean, of course, that I'd stopped loving her, that I'd forgotten her, or that her image had paled on the contrary in the form of a quiet nostalgia she remained constantly within me I longed for her as one longs for something definitively lost.
Milan Kundera
Why don't you ever use your strength on me? she said. Because love means renouncing strength, said Franz softly.
Milan Kundera
And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
Milan Kundera
