I think, therefore I am' is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. Milan Kundera More Quotes by Milan Kundera More Quotes From Milan Kundera Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together. Milan Kundera beautifultwopeople Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which bad is that in a given situation we can make only one decision; we are not granted a second, third, or fourth life in which to compare various decisions. Milan Kundera granteddecisionreason When I was a little boy in short pants, I dreamed about a miraculous ointment that would make me invisible. Then I became an adult, began to write, and wanted to be successful. Now I'm successful and would like to have the ointment that would make me invisible. Milan Kundera successfulwritingboys The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable and worthy of unbearable nostalgia. Milan Kundera dazzleunbearablepurpose The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. Milan Kundera strengthstrugglememories Yes, it's crazy. Love is either crazy or it's nothing at all. Milan Kundera crazy-lovecrazylove-is It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life -- and herein lies its secret -- takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it; it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch. Milan Kundera borderssecretlying ...she merely wished to find a way out of the maze. She knew that she had become a burden to him: she took things too seriously, turning everything into a tragedy, and failed to grasp the lightness and amusing insignificance of physical love. How she wished she could learn lightness! She yearned for someone to help her out of her anachronistic shell. Milan Kundera shellsmazestragedy Our historical experience teaches us that men imitate one another, that their attitudes are statistically calculable, their opinions manipulable, and that man is therefore less an individual (a subject) than an element in a mass. Milan Kundera historicalattitudemen ...no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it. Milan Kundera actionfeelingsway 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. Milan Kundera voicelove-ismen Speak truth to power. Milan Kundera speak-the-truthspeak Once her love had been publicized, it would gain weight, become a burden. Milan Kundera burdengainsweight The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead. Milan Kundera stupidityattitudepeople The more vast the amount of time we've left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us to return to it. Milan Kundera returnvoicecalling The basis of shame is not some personal mistake of ours, but the ignominy, the humiliation we feel that we must be what we are without any choice in the matter, and that this humiliation is seen by everyone. Milan Kundera choicesmattermistake Love is a desire for that lost half of ourselves. Milan Kundera halfdesirelove-is nothing yet. I've been waiting." "for what?" she made no response. she could not tell him that she had been waiting for him. Milan Kundera responsewaitingmade Tereza's mother never stopped reminding her that being a mother meant sacrificing everything. Her words had the ring of truth, backed as they were by the experience of a woman who had lost everything because of her child. Tereza would listen and believe that being a mother was the highest value in life and that being a mother was a great sacrifice. If a mother was Sacrifice personified, then a daughter was Guilt, with no possibility of redress. Milan Kundera daughtermotherchildren Do you realize that people don't know how to read Kafka simply because they want to decipher him? Instead of letting themselves be carried away by his unequaled imagination, they look for allegories - and come up with nothing but clichés: life is absurd (or it is not absurd), God is beyond reach (or within reach), etc. You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself. Milan Kundera imaginationpeopleart
