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Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being.

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
Literary
Unknown
Existence
Reason
Human
Humans
Fragment
Work
Fragments
Reveals

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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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.
Milan Kundera
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Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together.
Milan Kundera
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Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.
Milan Kundera
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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.
Milan Kundera
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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
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Sad company is bad company.
Milan Kundera
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The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question.
Milan Kundera
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The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.
Milan Kundera
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The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone.
Milan Kundera
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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
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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The senator had only one argument in his favour: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.
Milan Kundera
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But if God is gone and man is no longer master, then who is master?
Milan Kundera
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I think, therefore I am' is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches.
Milan Kundera
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The source of anxiety lies in the future. If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget your worries.
Milan Kundera
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Through the air floated only important words, and Flajsman said to himself that love has but one true measure, and that is death. At the end of true love is death, and only the love that ends in death is love.
Milan Kundera
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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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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.
Milan Kundera
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Believe me, nothing is more beautiful than to carry out crazy ideas. I'd like my whole life to be one single crazy idea.
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