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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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Milan Kundera
Age: 95
Born: 1929
Born: April 1
Author
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Brünn
Disgusting
Oneself
Talent
Talk
Novelistic
Distinguishes
Disgust
Lyric

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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Being in a foreign country means walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, colleagues, and friends, and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has known from childhood.
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A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.
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There is such a thing as everyday, ordinary, vulgar ecstasy the ecstasy of anger, the ecstasy of speed at the wheel, the ecstasy of ear-splitting noise, ecstasy in the soccer stadium.
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The reign of imagagology begins where history ends.
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To laugh is to live profoundly.
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Yes, if you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes!
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Perhaps if they had stayed together longer, Sabina and Franz would have begun to understand the words they used. Gradually, timorously, their vocabularies would have come together, like bashful lovers, and the music of one would have begun to intersect with the music of the other. But it was too late now.
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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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Fortunately women have the miraculous ability to change the meaning of their actions after the event.
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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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Looking out over the courtyard at the dirty walls, he realized he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love.
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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.
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The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and thus the novelists' discoveries, however old they may be, will never cease to astonish.
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The best actors do not let the wheels show.
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The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.
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Kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.
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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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Immortality no longer interests the weary old man at all.
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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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what's the matter? he asked nothing what do you want me to do for you? i want you to be old. ten years older. twenty years older what she meant was: i want you to be weak. as weak as i am.
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