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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
Distinguishes
Disgust
Lyric
Disgusting
Oneself
Talent
Talk
Novelistic

More quotes by Milan Kundera

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He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library.
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The beauty of New York is unintentional it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern.
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Fidelity gives a unity to lives that would otherwise splinter into thousands of split-second impressions.
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The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question.
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I have a strong will to love you for eternity.
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Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something - love - from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company.
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Love is a continual interrogation. I don’t know of a better definition of love.
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Is not parody the eternal lot of man?
Milan Kundera
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Happiness is the longing for repetition.
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He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
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The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history.
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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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No one can get really drunk on a novel or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Reethoven's Ninth, Rartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, or the Reatles' White Album?
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The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia.
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Only animals were not expelled from Paradise.
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Yes, it was too late, and Sabina knew she would leave Paris, move on, and on again, because were she to die here they would cover her up with a stone, and in the mind of a woman for whom no place is home the thought of an end to all flight is unbearable.
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He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.
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Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry.
Milan Kundera
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As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom.
Milan Kundera
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Living, there is no happiness in that. Living: carrying one’s painful self through the world. But being, being is happiness. Being: Becoming a fountain, a fountain on which the universe falls like warm rain.
Milan Kundera