Quotes from Milan Kundera

What those years said of themselves was that they were the most joyous of years, and anyone who failed to rejoice was immediately suspected of lamenting the victory of the working class or |what was equally sinful| giving way individualistically to inner sorrows.

All he knew about old age was that it a time when a person had passed his maturity; when fate had ended; when there was no longer any need to fear that terrible mystery called the future; when every love than came along was certain and final.

Una belleza no intencional. Sí. También podría decirse: la belleza como error. Antes de que la belleza desaparezca por completo del mundo, existirá aún durante un tiempo como error. La belleza como error es la última fase de la historia de la belleza.

Rastlant?lar?n, sadece rastlant?lar?n söyleyecek bir sözü vard?r bize. Gereklilikten doÄŸan, olmas?n? beklediÄŸimiz, günbegün yinelenen her ÅŸey dilsizdir. Sadece rastlant?lar bir ÅŸeyler söyler bize.

But the larger a man grows in his own inner darkness, the more his outer form diminishes.

Bu dünyada gençlik ve güzelliÄŸin bir anlam? yoktu; birbirinin t?pat?p eÅŸi, ruhlar? görünmez olmuÅŸ bedenlerle dolu uçsuz bucaks?z bir toplama kamp?ndan baÅŸka bir ÅŸey deÄŸildi yaÅŸad???m?z dünya.

he tried to remind himself , don't think about her! don't think about her! he said to himself, i am sick with compassion

That's the age people marry, have their first child, choose a profession. Eventually we come to know and understand a lot of things, but it's too late, because a whole life has already been determined at a stage when we didn't know a thing.

Pravda, u stvari, i ne treba da nas previše zanima. Pravda nije ljudska stvar. Postoji pravda slijepih i krutih zakona, a osim nje možda i neka viša pravda, ali tu ja ne razumijem. Uvijek mi se ?inilo da na ovom svijetu živim izvan pravde. Pravda me se ne ti?e. Pravda je nešto izvan mene i iznad mene. Kako god se uzme, nešto neljudsko. Nikad ne?u sura?ivati s tom odvratnom silom.

Nós compreendemos há muito tempo que não era mais possível mudar este mundo, nem remodelá-lo, nem impedir sua infeliz trajetória para a frente. Havia uma única resistência possível: não levá-lo a sério. Mas constato que nossas gozações perderam seu poder.

Everyone is wrong about the future.

The beauty of New York rests on a completely different base. It's unintentional. It arose independent of human design, like a stalagmitic cavern. Forms which are in themselves quite ugly turn up fortuitously, without design, in such incredible surroundings that they sparkle with a sudden wondrous poetry.

Waking up was sheer delight for him: he always showed a naive and simple amazement at the discovery that he was back on earth; he was sincerely pleased. She, on the other hand, awoke with great reluctance, with a desire to stave off the day by keeping her eyes closed.

Not every woman was worthy of being called a woman.

and so the man who called to her was simultaneously a stranger and a member of the secret brotherhood. He called to her in a kind voice, and Tereza felt her soul rushing up to the surface through her blood vessels.

Întotdeauna m-a ÅŸocat ideea c? un trup superb poate fi o fabric? de secreÅ£ii; Å£i-am spus c? nu suport s? v?d o fat? suflându-ÅŸi nasul. Parc? te v?d; te-ai oprit, m-ai privit fix ÅŸi mi-ai spus pe un ton straniu, ÅŸtiutor, convins, ap?sat: Suflându-ÅŸi nasul? Mie îmi e destul s?-i v?d ochiul clipind, s? v?d miÅŸcarea pleoapei peste cornee, ca s? simt o sil? aproape insuportabil?.

I've always had the sense that my life is run by other people. Except for a few years after Martin died. Those were the toughest years, I was alone with my children, I had to cope by myself. Complete poverty. You won't believe this, but nowadays when I look back, those are my happiest years.

Her drama was no drama of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being

The basis of shame is not some mistake of ours, but that this humiliation is seen by everyone.

To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know hot to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know hot to be dead.

If God's masons built real walls, I doubt we'd be able to destroy them. But instead of walls all I see is backdrops, sets. And sets are made to be destroyed.

The scene taking place illustrates an immemorial error of men: having appropriated the role of seducers, they never even consider any women but the ones they might desire; the idea doesn't occur to them that a woman who is ugly or old, or who simply stands outside their own erotic imaginings, might want to possess them.

The moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful.

Our dreams prove that to imagine-to dream about things that have not happened-is among mankind's deepest needs.