Quotes from Milan Kundera

For twenty years he had thought about nothing but his return. But once he was back, he was amazed to realize that his life, the very essence of his life, its center, its treasure, lay outside Ithaca, in the twenty years of his wanderings. And this treasure he had lost, and could retrieve only by telling about it.

Chance and chance alone has a message for us.

O futuro não a interessava; desejava a eternidade; a eternidade é o tempo que se deteve, que se imobilizou; o futuro torna a eternidade impossível (...)

That is why, looking him straight in the eye, she insisted she had not had an orgasm even though the rug was fairly dripping with it. It's not sensual pleasure I'm after, she would say, it's happiness. And pleasure without happiness is not pleasure. In other words, she was pounding on the gate of his poetic memory. But the gate was shut. There

Her guilty conscience was as vague as original sin.

Para um amor se tornar inesquecível é preciso que, desde o primeiro momento, os acasos se reúnam nele como os pássaros nos ombros de São Francisco de Assis.

So fateful a decision resting on so fortuitous a love

We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it.

Ainsi m'étais-je petit à petit habitué au fait que ma vie avait perdu sa continuité, qu'elle m'était tombée des mains et qu'il ne me resterait plus qu'à commencer enfin à être, même dans mon for intérieur, là où je me trouvais réellement et sans appel.

But although they had a clear understanding of the logical meaning of the words they exchanged, they failed to hear the semantic susurrus of the river flowing through them.

Si las personas solo fueran responsables de lo que hacen conscientemente, los idiotas estarían de antemano libres de cualquier culpa. Lo que pasa querido Flajsman, es que las personas tienen la obligación de saber. Las personas son responsables de su ignorancia. La ignorancia es culpable

From that time on she had known that beauty is a world betrayed. The only way we can encounter it is if its persecutors have overlooked it somewhere.

Oja?enost je stanje ispunjeno patnjom, izazvano pogledom na iznenada otkrivenu vlastitu bijedu. Jedan od uobi?ajenih lijekova protiv vlastite bijede je ljubav, jer onaj ko je apsolutno voljen ne može biti bijedan. Svi njegovi nedostaci bivaju iskupljeni pod magi?nim pogledom ljubavi u kome i nesportsko plivanje glavom isturenom iznad površine vode postaje zanosno.

Chúng ta s?ng ch? má»™t l?n, t?t hÆ¡n ??ng bao gi? s?ng

It was not an easy task: her soul - her sad, timid, self-effacing soul - lay concealed in the depths of her bowels and was ashamed to show itself.

What is unique about the I hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person.

Las personas, por sí mismas, no son capaces de perdonar, eso no es algo que entre dentro de sus posibilidades. No tienen el poder de hacer que se convierta en nada un pecado que ya ha ocurrido.

Nada se compreenderá da vida humana enquanto se persistir em escamotear a primeira de todas as evidências: uma realidade, tal como existia, já não existe; a sua restituição é impossível.

Looked at from the outside, I haven't experienced anything. Looked at from the outside! But I have a feeling that my experience inside is worth writing about and could be interesting to everybody.

pleasure without happiness is not pleasure.

love meant the constant expectation of a blow.

Really, there are books meant for daytime reading and books that are only be read at night.

Non esiste alcuna certezza che Dio abbia affidato davvero all'uomo il dominio sulle altre creature. E' invece più probabile che l'uomo si sia inventato Dio per santificare il dominio che egli ha usurpato sulla mucca o sul cavallo

La preoccupazione per la propria immagine, è questa la fatale immaturità dell'uomo. È così difficile essere indifferenti alla propria immagine. Una tale indifferenza è al di sopra delle forze umane. L'uomo ci arriva solo dopo la morte. E neanche subito. Solo molto tempo dopo la morte.