Quotes by Milan Kundera

“In Irena’s head the alcohol plays a double role: it frees her fantasy, encourages her boldness, makes her sensual, and at the same time it dims her memory. She makes love wildly, lasciviously, and ...”

“We’ve known for a long time that it was no longer possible to overturn this world, nor reshape it, nor head off its dangerous headlong rush. There’s been only one possible resistance: to not take i...”

“Most people willingly deceive themselves with a doubly false faith; they believe in eternal memory (of men, things, deeds, peoples) and in rectification (of deeds, errors, sins, injustice). Both ar...”

“And do you know the story about Haydn’s head? They cut it away from the still-warm cadaver so some insane scientist could take apart the brain and pinpoint the location of musical genius. And the E...”

“Every novel says to the reader: “Things are not as simple as you think.” That is the novel’s eternal truth, but it grows steadily harder to hear amid the din of easy, quick answers that come faster...”

“How could she feel nostalgia when he was right in front of her? How can you suffer from the absence of a person who is present? You can suffer nostalgia in the presence of the beloved if you glimps...”

“If I were a doctor, I would diagnose his condition thus: "The patient is suffering from nostalgic insufficiency.”

“an old villa surrounded by a garden looked to them like the image of a comforting home, the dream of an idyll long past.”

“Until then her view of time was the present moving forward and devouring the future; she either feared its swiftness (when she was awaiting something difficult) or rebelled at its slowness (when sh...”

“It was the incommunicable scent of this country, its intangible essence, that she had brought along with her to France.”

“Jealousy isn't a pleasant quality, but if it isn't overdone (and if it's combined with modesty), apart from its inconvenience there's even something touching about it.”

“Jealousy has the amazing power to illuminate a single person in an intense beam of light, keeping the multitude of others in total darkness.”

“Jealousy is like a raging toothache. One cannot do anything when one is jealous, not even sit down. Once can only come and go. Back and forth.”

“[Large countries'] patriotism is different: they are buoyed by their glory, their importance, their universal mission. The Czechs loved their country not because it was glorious but because it was ...”

“He took her in his arms and lifted her up. She looked at him and he noticed only now that her eyes were full of tears. He pressed her to him. She understood that he loved her and this suddenly fill...”

“We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history, and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we me...”

“The physical contact with people who struck and trampled and killed one another seemed far worse to him than a solitary death in the purity of the waters.”

“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.”

“Until that day at the dress department Lucie had been many things to me: a child, a source of comfort, a balm, an escape from myself; she was literally everything for me – but a woman. Our love in ...”

“Long ago one of the Cynic philosophers strutted through the streets of Athens in a torn mantle to make himself admired by everyone by displaying his contempt for convention. One day Socrates met hi...”