Quotes from Milan Kundera

punishing people who don't know what they've done is barbaric forgive them for know not what they do

One day, he saw her through the window of a café. She was sitting with two women, and her face, long riddled with wrinkles from her unbridled gift for grimaces, was in a state of animation.

Am spus înainte c? metaforele sunt periculoase. Iar dragostea începe cu o metafor?. Altfel spus: dragostea începe în clipa în care o femeie se înscrie cu un cuvânt în memoria noastr? poetic?.

Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limits of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence.)

No, it was not superstition, it was a sense of beauty that cured her of her depression and imbued her with a new will to live.

You'll learn either that people aren't human or that you don't know what humans are like

?ovjek prolazi kroz sadašnjost vezanih o?iju. Smije samo naslu?ivati i naga?ati što zapravo doživljava. Tek poslije, kad mu skinu rubac s o?iju, može pogledati u prošlost i ustanoviti što je proživio i kakvog to ima smisla.

Quem quer «elevar-se» continuamente deve esperar um dia ter vertigens. O que é a vertigem? O medo de cair? Mas porque temos nós vertigens num miradouro protegido com um parapeito? A vertigem não é o medo de cair, é outra coisa. É a voz do vazio por debaixo de nós que nos atrai e nos enfeitiça, o desejo de queda do qual nos defendemos depois com pavor.

I always dream of some great unexpected infidelity. But I have not yet been able to escape my bigamous state. Milan Kundera, The Paris Review, summer 1984 no. 92

Non si può mai sapere che cosa si deve volere perché si vive una vita soltanto e non si può ne confrontarla con le proprie vite precedenti, né correggerla nelle vite future.

kitschul este, in esenta, negatia absoluta a cacatului; atit in sensul propriu cit si in cel figurat al cuvintului; kitschul exclude din cimpul sau vizual tot ce-i esential inacceptabil in existenta umana.

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of earth abd his earthy being, and become half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.

Perhaps I love you very much. But probably just for this reason it would be better if we remain as we are. I think a man and a woman love each other all the more when they don't live together and when they know about each other only that they exist, and when they are grateful to each other for the fact that they exist and that they know they exist. And that alone is enough for their happiness.

Qué indefenso está el hombre ante los elogios!

Ma è proprio il debole che deve saper essere forte e andar via, quando il forte è troppo debole per poter fare del male al debole.

Forms which are in themselves quite ugly turn up fortuitously, without design, in such incredible surroundings that they sparkle with a sudden wondrous poetry.

She came from a land where revolutionary illusion had long since faded but where the thing he admired most in revolution remained: life on a large scale; a life of risk, daring, and the danger of death. Sabina had renewed his faith in the grandeur of human endeavour. Superimposing the painful drama of her country on her person, he found her even more beautiful.

The Transformation of music into noise was a planetary process by which mankind was entering the historical phase of total ugliness. The total ugliness to come had made itself felt first as omnipresent acoustical ugliness: cars, motorcycles, electric guitars, drills, loudspeakers, sirens. The omnipresence of visual ugliness would soon follow.

El amor, por definición, es un regalo no merecido; ser amado sin mérito es incluso la prueba de un amor verdadero.

iar iubirile sunt ca imperiile: dac? piere ideea pe care au fost întemeiate, pier È™i ele odat? cu ea.

The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. From the time he met Tereza, no woman had the right to leave the slightest impression on that part of his brain.

he was happier with Sabina the invisible goddess than the Sabina who had accompanied him throughout the world and whose love he constantly feared losing.

Era la vertigine. L'ottenebrante, irresistibile desiderio di cadere. La vertigine potremmo anche chiamarla ebbrezza della debolezza. Ci si rende conto della propria debolezza e invece di resisterle, ci si vuole abbandonare a essa. Ci si ubriaca della propria debolezza, si vuole essere ancor più deboli, si vuole cadere in mezzo alla strada, davanti a tutti, si vuole stare in basso, ancora più in basso.

Metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with.