Quotes from Milan Kundera

I say novelist, not writer. The novelist is one who, according to Flaubert, seeks to disappear behind his work.

the dead far outnumber the living.

Suddenly she felt a need to urinate. You see, she cried. I need to pee. That's proof positive I'm not dead! But they only laughed again. Needing to pee is perfectly normal! they said. You'll go on feeling that kind of thing for a long time yet. Like a person who has an arm cut off and keeps feeling it's there. We may not have a drop of pee left in us, but we keep needing to pee.

It has something malicious about it (things suddenly turning out different from what they pretended to be), but to some extent also a beneficent relief (things are less weighty than they appeared to be, letting us live more freely, no longer oppressing us with their austere seriousness).

And I wish that the electric current could be shut off from guitars and instead connected to chairs to which I would personally tie all guitarists.

what HAD come over her? Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Tried to take revenge on her? No. 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.

Dramatic tension is the real curse of the novel, because it transforms everything, even the most beautiful pages, even the most surprising scenes and observations merely into steps leading to the final resolution, in which the meaning of everything that preceded is concentrated.

Qué podía ser sino el amor que había llegado de ese modo para que él lo reconociese?

El aparato de propaganda quiere que la galería de héroes muertos esté bien ordenada. Quiere que entre los héroes haya un héroe principal.

la idea del eterno retorno significa cierta perspectiva desde la cual las cosas aparecen de un modo distinto a como las conocemos: aparecen sin la circunstancia atenuante de su fugacidad.

Non solo assomigliava fisicamente alla madre, ma a volte ho l'impressione che la sua vita non sia stata che un prolungamento della vita della madre [...].

Pour échapper à la souffrance, le plus souvent on se réfugie dans l'avenir. Sur la piste du temps, on imagine une ligne au-delà de laquelle la souffrance présente cessera d'exister.

Nous traversons le présent les yeux bandés (...) plus tard seulement , quand est dénoué le bandeau et que nous examinons le passé, nous nous rendons compte de ce que nous avons vécu et nous en comprenons le sens.

No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.

People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone.

The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.

what's the matter?" he asked "nothing" "what do you want me to do for you?" "i want you to be old. ten years older. twenty years older" what she meant was: i want you to be weak. as weak as i am.

Laughing deeply is living deeply.

Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.

I am incapable of speaking of myself and of my life and the states of my soul, I am discreet to an almost pathological degree, and there is nothing I can do against that.

She regarded books as the emblems of secret brotherhood. A man with this sort of library couldn't possibly hurt her.

No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.

Tereza knew what happens during the moment love is born: the woman cannot resist the voice calling forth her terrified soul; the man cannot resist the woman whose soul thus responds to his voice.