The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented. Milan Kundera More Quotes by Milan Kundera More Quotes From Milan Kundera 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 No episode is a priori condemned to remain an episode forever, for every event, no matter how trivial, conceals within itself the possibility of sooner or later becoming the cause of other events and thus changing into a story or an adventure. Episodes are like land mines. The majority of them never explode, but the most unremarkable of them may someday turn into a story that will prove fateful to you. Milan Kundera landforeveradventure At the end of true love is death, and only the love that ends in death is love. Milan Kundera true-love-isendslove-is Yes, if you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes! Milan Kundera unbearable-lightness-of-beinginfinityeye It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth. Milan Kundera maturityfavorsmind And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a love the way we reread a book or resee a film. Milan Kundera booklyingpast La memoria no guarda películas, guarda fotografías. Milan Kundera Living for Sabina meant seeing. Seeing is limited by two borders: strong light, which blinds, and total darkness. Perhaps that was what motivated Sabina's distaste for all extremism. Extremes mean borders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death. Milan Kundera passionstrongart The history of music is mortal, but the idiocy of the guitar is eternal. Milan Kundera idiocyguitarmusic Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. Milan Kundera jealousyevildog A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person. Milan Kundera unhappy-personunbearablelife-is The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness. Milan Kundera laughterjoyhappiness The psychological and physiological mechanism of love is so complex that at a certain period in his life a young man must concentrate all his energy on coming to grips with it, and in this way he misses the actual content of the love: the woman he loves. (In this he is much like a young violinist who cannot concentrate on the emotional content of a piece until the technique required to play it comes automatically.) Milan Kundera emotionallove-ismen Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. Milan Kundera naivequestions-and-answersserious Those boobs of yours are ubiquitous - like God! Milan Kundera There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely. All the sadness of life lies in that fact. In the course of a single second, our senses of sight, of hearing, of smell, register (knowingly or not) a swarm of events and a parade of sensations and ideas passes through our head. Each instant represents a little universe, irrevocably forgotten in the next instant. Milan Kundera elude-ussadnesslying Immortality is a ridiculous illusion, an empty word, a butterfly net chasing the wind. Milan Kundera ridiculousbutterflywind Man reckons with immortality, and forgets to reckon with death. Milan Kundera immortalityforgetmen Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence. Milan Kundera questions-and-answerslimitschildren Eroticism is like a dance: one always leads the other. Milan Kundera dancingdanceinspirational
