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I am not in favor of imposing happiness on people. Everyone has a right to his bad wine, to his stupidity, and to his dirty fingernails.

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
Everyone
Fingernails
Right
Imposing
People
Favor
Favors
Stupidity
Dirty
Wine
Happiness

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The ludicrous element in our feeling does not make them any less authentic.
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I cannot hate them because nothing binds me to them I have nothing in common with them.
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The love between dog and man is idyllic, dogs were never expelled from paradise.
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You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.
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Why don't you ever use your strength on me? she said. Because love means renouncing strength, said Franz softly.
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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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All lovers unconsciously establish their own rules of the game, which from the outset admit of no transgression.
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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
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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.
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Remembering now all those farewells (fake farewells, worked-up farewells), Irena thinks: a person who messes up her goodbyes shouldn’t expect much from her re-unions.
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