Quote

Merely by being born intelligent, you right away find yourself in absolute exile.

Milan Kundera

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Milan Kundera
Age: 95
Born: 1929
Born: April 1
Author
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Brünn
Away
Find
Right
Exile
Absolutes
Absolute
Merely
Intelligent
Born

More quotes by Milan Kundera

Image
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.
Milan Kundera
Image
But man, because he has only one life to live, cannot conduct experiments to test whether to follow his passion (compassion) or not.
Milan Kundera
Image
And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.
Milan Kundera
Image
But just make someone who has fallen in love listen to his stomach rumble, and the unity of body and soul, that lyrical illusion of the age of science , instantly fades away.
Milan Kundera
Image
The beauty of New York is unintentional it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern.
Milan Kundera
Image
The great European novel started out as entertainment, and every true novelist is nostalgic for it. In fact, the themes of those great entertainments are terribly serious-think of Cervantes!
Milan Kundera
Image
And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?
Milan Kundera
Image
And I ran after that voice through the streets so as not to lose sight of the splendid wreath of bodies gliding over the city, and I realized with anguish in my heart that they were flying like birds and I was falling like a stone, that they had wings and I would never have any.
Milan Kundera
Image
Happiness is the longing for repetition.
Milan Kundera
Image
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.
Milan Kundera
Image
The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in and for other people.
Milan Kundera
Image
The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.
Milan Kundera
Image
Speak truth to power.
Milan Kundera
Image
Optimism is the opium of the people.
Milan Kundera
Image
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.
Milan Kundera
Image
Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud.
Milan Kundera
Image
We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.
Milan Kundera
Image
In the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.
Milan Kundera
Image
Why don't you ever use your strength on me? she said. Because love means renouncing strength, said Franz softly.
Milan Kundera
Image
Only after a while did it occur to me (in spite of the chilly silence which surrounded me) that my story was not of the tragic sort, but rather of the comic variety. At any rate that afforded me some comfort.
Milan Kundera