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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
Lyric
Disgusting
Oneself
Talent
Talk
Novelistic
Distinguishes
Disgust

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Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being.
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Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry.
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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.
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And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
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The love between dog and man is idyllic, dogs were never expelled from paradise.
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Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short.
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The moment Kafka attracts more attenetion than Joseph K., Kafka's posthumous death begins.
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But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.
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For existential mathematics, which does not exist, would probably propose this equation: the value of coincidence equals the degree of its improbability.
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Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being.
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Speak truth to power.
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There is no perfection only life
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Now time has a very different look it is no longer the conquering present capturing the future it is the present conquered and captured and carried off by the past.
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A man able to think isn't defeated - even when he is defeated.
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The important thing is to abide by the rule of threes. Either you see a woman three times in quick succession and then never again, or you maintain relations over the years but make sure that the rendezvous are at least three weeks apart.
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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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Until that time, her betrayals had filled her with excitement and joy, because they opened up new paths to new adventures of betrayal. But what if the paths came to an end? One could betray one's parents, husband, country, love, but when parents, husband, country, and love were gone - what was left to betray?
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Those who consider the Devil to be a partisan of Evil and angels to be warriors for Good accept the demagogy of the angels. Things are clearly more complicated.
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When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.
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I understood that there was no escaping the memories, that I was surround by them. (p.30)
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