"Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has it's own reason, which is not reasonable"
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Quote collection
Milan Kundera quotes (page 17 of 21)
410 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I have a strong will to love you for eternity."
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"a man possessed with peace is always smiling"
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"The phrase "It's absolutely the same with me, I..." seems to be an approving echo, a way of continuing the other's thought, but that is an illusion: in reality it is a brute revolt against a brutal violence, an effort to free our own ear from bondage and to occupy the enemy's ear by force. Because all of man's life among his kind is nothing other than a battle to seize the ear of others."
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"The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late. Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."
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"But man, because he has only one life to live, cannot conduct experiments to test whether to follow his passion (compassion) or not."
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"But then he told himself: What does it really mean to be useful? Today's world, just as it is, contains the sum of the utility of all people of all times. Which implies: The highest morality consists in being useless."
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"Revolution in Love’. Can you tell me what you mean by that? Do you want free love as against bourgeois marriage, or monogamy as against bourgeois promiscuity?"
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"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."
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"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."
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"The present era grabs everything that was ever written in order to transform it into films, TV programs; or cartoons. What is essential in a novel is precisely what can only be expressed in a novel, and so every adaptation contains nothing but the non-essential. If a person is still crazy enough to write novels nowadays and wants to protect them, he has to write them in such a way that they cannot be adapted, in other words, in such a way that they cannot be retold."
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"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."
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"Aren't we living in a world where heedless men only desire decapitated women?"
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"...[P]eople who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all... (p.24)"
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"Children are the future, because mankind is moving more and more towards infancy."
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"I understood that there was no escaping the memories, that I was surround by them. (p.30)"
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"But what had happened, had happened, and it was no longer possible to right anything."
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"She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance."
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"Even in the game there lurks a lack of freedom; even in a game is a trap for the players."
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"The day after his father left, Franz and his mother went into town together, and as they left home Franz noticed that her shoes did not match. He was in a quandary: he wanted to point out the mistake, but was afraid he would hurt her. So, during the two hours they spent walking through the city together he kept his eyes focused on her feet. It was then he had his first inkling of what it means to suffer."
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