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Fidelity gives a unity to lives that would otherwise splinter into thousands of split-second impressions.

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
Giving
Splits
Would
Thousands
Impression
Unity
Splinter
Otherwise
Splinters
Second
Impressions
Gives
Fidelity
Lives
Split

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loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.
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it is wrong to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences... but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life a dimension of beauty.
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She regarded books as the emblems of secret brotherhood. A man with this sort of library couldn't possibly hurt her.
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she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others.
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Disgust at having to talk about oneself is what distinguishes novelistic talent from lyric talent.
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a man possessed with peace is always smiling
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The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty.
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The Greek word for return is nostos. Algos means suffering. So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.
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And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.
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In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.
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Is not parody the eternal lot of man?
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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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The young man called the waiter and paid. Then he got up and said to the girl: 'We're going.' Where to?' The girl feigned surprise. Don't ask, just come on,' said the young man. Is that any way to talk to me?' It's the way I talk to whores.
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Mankind's real moral test, a test so radical and so deep that it escapes our gaze, is probably the one of its relations with those that are the most at its mercy the Animals.
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Speak truth to power.
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For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words.
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...[P]eople who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all... (p.24)
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[W]e must never allow the future to collapse under the burden of memory.
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Happiness is the longing for repetition.
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Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue - perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.
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