loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away. Milan Kundera More Quotes by Milan Kundera More Quotes From Milan Kundera Totalitarianism is neither left nor right, and within its empire both will perish. I was never a believer, but after seeing Czech Catholics persecuted during the Stalinist terror, I felt the deepest solidarity with them. What separated us, the belief in God, was secondary to what united us. In Prague, they hanged the Socialists and the priests. Thus a fraternity of the hanged was born. Milan Kundera pragueempirescatholic There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. Milan Kundera secretforgetmemories Between the approximation of the idea and the precision of reality there was a small gap of the unimaginable, and it was this hiatus that gave him no rest. Milan Kundera gapsrealityideas Her kitsch was the image of home, all peace, quiet, and harmony, and ruled by a loving mother and a wise father. It was an image that took shape in her after the death of her parents. The less her life resembled the sweetest of dreams, the more sensitive she was to its magic, and more than once she shed tears when the ungrateful daughter in a sentimental film embraced the neglected father as the windows of the happy family's house shone out into the dying day. Milan Kundera wisemotherdream Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness. Milan Kundera intenselightdarkness I have no mission. No one has. Milan Kundera missions A man is responsible for his ignorance. Milan Kundera responsibleignorancemen A constant interrogation. Milan Kundera interrogationconstantlove ...people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste. Milan Kundera blowsleepmorning He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost. Milan Kundera platolove-isphilosophy The young man called the waiter and paid. Then he got up and said to the girl: 'We're going.' Where to?' The girl feigned surprise. Don't ask, just come on,' said the young man. Is that any way to talk to me?' It's the way I talk to whores. Milan Kundera girlmenway Love is a battle, and I plan to go on fighting. To the end. Milan Kundera battlefightinglove-is 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. Milan Kundera threeimportantyears given the nature of the human couple, the love of a man and a woman is a priori inferior to that which can exist (at least in the best instances) in the love between man and dog...It is a completely selfless love. Milan Kundera coupledogmen The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us. Milan Kundera girlboysmoving Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries. Milan Kundera criticscriticismdiscovery My lifelong ambition has been to unite the utmost seriousness of question with the utmost lightness of form. Milan Kundera lifelongformambition Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, 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. Milan Kundera voicesuccessfall Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory. Milan Kundera dreamlovememories Such are the Splendors and Miseries of memory: it is proud of its ability to keep truthful track of the logical sequence of past events; but when it comes to how we experienced them at the time, memory feels no obligation to truth. Milan Kundera trackmemoriespast
