1,075 Quotes by Milan Kundera

The novel's spirit is the spirit of complexity. . . . The novel's spirit is the spirity of continuity . . . a thing made to last, to connect the past with the future.

La luce rossastra del tramonto illumina ogni cosa con il fascino della nostalgia: anche la ghigliottina

Een kind hebben betekent zich absoluut uitspreken voor de mens. Als ik een kind heb, dan is het alsof ik zou zeggen: Ik ben geboren, ik heb het leven geproefd en ben er achter gekomen dat het goed genoeg is en dat het verdient herhaald te worden.

She wants to have her notebooks so that the flimsy framework of events, as she has constructed them in her school notebook, will be provided with walls and become a house she can live in. Because if the tottering structure of her memories collapses like a clumsily pitched tent, all that Tamina will be left with is the present, that invisible point, that nothingness moving slowly toward death.

Bėgant metams, ji ims įžvelgti visuose šiuose panašumuose žmonių suvienodėjimą (žmonės norėdami pasibučiuoti visi iki vieno sustoja toje pačioje vietoje, visi rengiasi vienodai, girdami moterį vartoja tas pačias metaforas) ir alinamą įvykių monotoniją (įvykių, kurie yra tik amžinas to paties įvykio pasikartojimas); tačiau būdama paauglė ji kaupia šiuos sutapimus tarsi stebuklą, trokšdama įspėti jų reikšmes.

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?

In this book time thus flows in a tempo opposite that of real life: the tempo slows down as the years go by.

She refused at first, saying it would make a mockery of their love. She loved him too much to admit that what she thought of as unforgettable could ever be forgotten. Finally, of course, she did as he asked, but without enthusiasm. The notebooks showed it: they had many empty pages, and the entries were fragmentary.

Eventually we come to know and understand a lot of things, but it's too late, because a whole life has already been determined at a stage when we didn't know a thing.