Milan Kundera Quotes

We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives, nor perfect it in lives to come.

His connection to his life was that of a sculptor to his statue or a novelist to his novel. It is an inviolable right of a novelist to rework his novel. If the opening does not please him, he can rewrite or delete it. But Zdena's existence denied Mirek that author's prerogative. Zdena insisted on remaining on the opening pages of the novel and did not let herself be crossed out.

قال رامون: أجل، هذه هى الحال. يتلاقى الناس فى الحياة، يثرثرون ويتناقشون ويتشاجرون دون أن يدركوا أنهم يخاطبون بعضهم بعضًا من بعيد، كل واحد من مرصد ينتصب فى موقع مختلف من الزمن

His overriding life necessity was not love, it was his profession…He had come to medicine not by coincidence or calculation but by a deep inner desire. Insofar as it is possible to divide people into categories, the surest criterion is the deep-seated desires that orient them to one or another lifelong activity. Every Frenchman is different. But all the actors the world over are similar.

Es ist unmöglich zu überprüfen, welche Entscheidung die richtige ist, weil es keine Vergleiche gibt. Man erlebt alles unmittelbar, zum ersten Mal und ohne Vorbereitung. Wie ein Schauspieler, der auf die Bühne kommt, ohne vorher je geprobt zu haben. Was aber kann das Leben wert sein, wenn die erste Probe für das Leben schon das Leben selber ist? Aus diesem Grund gleicht das Leben immer einer Skizze. Auch „Skizze“ ist nicht das richtige Wort, weil Skizze immer ein Entwurf zu etwas ist, die Vorbereitung eines Bildes, während die Skizze unseres Lebens eine Skizze von nichts ist, ein Entwurf ohne Bild.
Einmal ist keinmal, sagt sich Tomas. Wenn man ohnehin nur einmal leben darf, so ist es, als lebe man überhaupt nicht.

It means what you are, wanting what you want and going after it without a sens od shame. People are slaves to rules.

The longing for order is at the same time a longing for death, because life is an incessant disruption of order.

كل ما يهم هو أن يكون المرء كما هو ، ألّا يحمر خجلاً من كونه يريد ما يريد ، يرغب فيما يرغب فيه . الناس عبيد المعايير . قال أحدهم يوماً ، إنه ينبغي للمرء أن يكون مثل هذا أو ذاك وعند ذلك اجتهدوا في أن يكونوه ، ولن يعرفوا قط ما كانوا ولا ماهم عليه ، وبالتالي فهم ليسوا أحداً . يجب على المرء ، فوق كل شىء أن يجرؤ ليكون هو نفسه.

تزداد جولي حزناً. و بالنسبة للرجل ، لا يوجد بلسم للألم أفضل من الحزن الذي يسببه لامرأة.

Children, you are the future,' he said, and today I realize he did not mean it the way it sounded. The reason children are the future is not that they will one day be grownups. No, the reason is that mankind is moving more and more in the direction of infancy, and childhood is the image of the future.

A man may ask anything of a woman, but unless he wishes to behave like a brute, he must make it possible for her to act in harmony with her deepest self-deceptions.

The stronger their nostalgia, the emptier of recollections it becomes.

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.

"Art arises from sources other than logic." (p.32)

"Blonde hair and black hair are the two poles of human nature. Black hair signifies virility, courage, frankness, activity, whereas blonde hair symbolises femininity, tenderness, weakness, and passivity. Therefore a blonde is in fact doubly a woman. A princess can only be blonde. That's also why, to be as feminine as possible, women dye their hair yellow- but never black"

"I'm curious about how pigments exercise their influence over the human soul", said Bertlef doubtfully.
"it's not a matter of pigments. A blonde unconsciously adapts herself to her hair. Especially if the blonde is a brunette who dyes her hair yellow. She tries to be faithful to her hair colour and behaves like a fragile creature, a shallow doll, she demands tenderness and service, courtesy and alimony, she's incapable of doing anything for herself, all refinement on the outside and coarseness on the inside. If black hair became a universal fashion, life on this world would clearly be better. It would be the most useful social reform ever achieved."