Quotes from Milan Kundera

a hatalom akkor a legédesebb, amikor legelfogadhatatlanabb. Amikor a buta az okos, a gyenge az erÅ's, a ronda a szép felett uralkodik...

Music was the negation of sentences, music was the anti-word!

The moment she removed his head from the body, she felt the strange and intoxicating touch of freedom. That anonymity of the body was a suddenly discovered paradise. With an odd delight, she expelled her wounded and too vigilant soul and was transformed into a simple body without past or memory, but all the more eager and receptive. She tenderly caressed Eva's face, while the headless body moved vigorously on top of her.

?ovjek sve proživljava prvi put i bez pripreme. Kao glumac koji igra predstavu bez ikakve probe. Pa koliko onda vrijedi život ako je prva proba života ve? život sam? Život je zato uvijek sli?an skici. Samo, ni skica nije prava rije?, jer je skica uvijek nacrt za nešto, priprema za sliku. A skica koja je naš život je skica nizašto, crtež iza kojega ne slijedi slika.

But who then was he? What could his own self really consist of? He bent over that self in order to peer into it, but all he could find was the reflection of himself bending over himself to peer into that self... Milan Kundera, Life is Elsewhere

What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have hap-pened at all. If we have only one life to live,we might as well not have lived at all.

Querer a alguien por compasion significa no quererlo de verdad.... tener compasion significa saber vivir con otro su desgracia, pero tambien sentir con el cualquier otro sentimiento: alegria, angustia, felicidad, dolor.

Y ¿cómo podría ser sincera una chica que irradia tanta juventud como usted? No puede ser sincera, porque ni siquiera sabe lo que lleva dentro. Pero, si lo supiese, debería coincidir conmigo en que el mayor placer es el de ser admirado. ¿No le parece?

La sensualité, c'est la mobilisation maximale des sens : on observe l'autre intensément et on écoute ses moindres bruits.

At the university she used to be seduced by the dreams of voyages to distant stars. What pleasure to escape far away into the universe, someplace where life expresses itself differently from here and needs no bodies! But despite all his amazing rockets, man will never progress very far in the universe. The brevity of his life makes the sky a dark lid against which he will forever crack his head, to fall back onto earth, where everything alive eats and can be eaten.

Omul care alearg? îÈ™i simte greutatea, vârsta, este mai conÈ™tient ca oricând de sine È™i de curgerea vieÈ›ii sale.

She had always secretly reproached him for not loving her enough. Her own love she considered above reproach, while his seemed mere condescension.

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.

Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.

The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's intense fulfilment.

what is unique about the 'I' hides itself exactly in what is unimaginable about a person. All we are able to imagine is what makes everyone like everyone else, what people have in common. The individual 'I' is what differs from the common stock, that is, what cannot be guessed at or calculated, what must be unveiled, uncovered

He looks at Mama out of the corner of his eye, again surprised by how little she is. As if all of her life has been a slow process of shrinkage.

beauty is a spark which flares up when two ages meet across the distance of time,...beauty is a clean sweep of chronology, a rebellion against time.

Op het toneel: de dialoog moet de toeschouwer een zo begrijpelijk en helder mogelijk idee verschaffen van het dramatisch conflict van de personages; in werkelijkheid: de persoanges die met elkaar praten, kennen elkaar en weten waarover ze het hebben; daardoor is hun dialoog voor een derde nooit helemaal begrijpelijk; hij blijft raadeslachtig, als het dunne oppervlak van het gezegde boven de onmetelijkheid vna het ongezegde.

whether they knew or didn't know is not the main issue; the main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn't know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool?

But her nascent love inflamed her sense of beauty, and she would never forget that music. Whenever she heard it, she would be touched. Everything going on around her at that moment would be haloed by the music and take on its beauty.

El amor cuando se hace público, aumenta de peso, se convierte en una carga.

A emigração é difícil também do ponto de vista puramente pessoal: pensa-se sempre na dor da nostalgia; mas o que é pior é a dor da alienação; o termo alemão die Entfremdung exprime melhor o que quero designar: o processo ao longo do qual o que nos for próximo se tornou estranho.

Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite num-ber of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limit-ed to one woman).