Milan Kundera

“Unlike the puerile loyalty to a conviction, loyalty to a friend is a virtue - perhaps the only virtue, the last remaining one.”

“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.”

“The ludicrous element in our feeling does not make them any less authentic.”

“L'erotismo è come il ballo: c'è sempre uno che conduce l'altro.”

“perhaps all the questions we ask for love, to measure, test, prob, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved. that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company”

“punishing people who don't know what they've done is barbaric"" forgive them for know not what they do”

“the less her life resembled that sweetest of dreams, the more sensitive she was to its magic.”

“love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory”

“and even if she did find them ugly, she would never say so, because flattery had long since become second nature to her”

“nothing yet. I've been waiting.""for what?"she made no response. she could not tell him that she had been waiting for him.”

“what's the matter?" he asked "nothing""what do you want me to do for you?""i want you to be old. ten years older. twenty years older"what she meant was: i want you to be weak. as weak as i am.”

“Before long, unfortunately, she began to be jealous herself, and Tomas saw her jealousy not as a Nobel Prize, but as a burden, a burden he would be saddled with until not long before his death.”

“our day-to-day life is bombarded with fortuities or, to be more precise, with the accidental meetings of people and events we call coincidences. "co-incidence" means that two events unexpectedly happen at the same time.”

“and so the man who called to her was simultaneously a stranger and a member of the secret brotherhood. He called to her in a kind voice, and Tereza felt her soul rushing up to the surface through her blood vessels.”

“not even one's own pain weigh so heavy as the pain one feels with someone , for someone”

“he tried to remind himself , don't think about her! don't think about her! he said to himself, i am sick with compassion”

“she thought that after what she had been through during the invasion she would stop being petty and grow up, grow wise and strong, but she had overestimated herself”

“Sí, de repente lo ví así: la mayoría de la gente se engaña mediante una doble creencia errónea: cree en el eterno recuerdo (de la gente, de las cosas, de los actos, de las naciones) y en la posibilidad de reparación (de los actos, de los errores, de los pecados, de las injusticias). Ambas creencias son falsas. La realidad es precisamente al contrario: todo será olvidado y nada será reparado. El papel de la reparación (de la venganza y del perdón) lo lleva a cabo el olvido. Nadie reparará las injusticias que se cometieron, pero todas las injusticias serán olvidadas.”

“The moment Kafka attracts more attenetion than Joseph K., Kafka's posthumous death begins.”

“When I described Madame de T's night, I recalled the well-known equation from one of the first chapters of the textbook of existential mathematics: the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting. From that equation we can deduce various corrollaries, for instance this one: our period is given over to the demon of speed, and that is the reason it so easily forgets its own self. Now I would reverse that statement and say: our period is obsessed by the desire to forget, and it is to fulfill that desire that it gives over to the demon of speed; it picks up the pace to show us that it no longer wishes to be remembered; that it is tired of itself; sick of itself; that it wants to blow out the tiny trembling flame of memory.”

“A scarf from her dress works free and floats behind her the way memories float behind the dead.”

“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?”

“He took a look at the blond girl’s eyes and knew that he must not take part in the rigged game in which the ephemeral passes for the eternal and the small for the big, that he must not take part in the rigged game called love.”

“No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals were not expelled from Paradise. The love between dog and man is idyllic. It knows no conflicts, no hair-raising scenes; it knows no development.”

“Tekdüzeliği mutluluk üretirdi, sıkıntı değil.”

“The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.”

“She pictures his jovial figure, dressed up in his T-short, shouting that Kafka was born in Prague, and she feels a desire rising through her body, the irrepressible desire to take a lover. Not to patch up her life as it is. But to turn it completely upside down. Finally take possession of her own fate.”

“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.”

“The feeling, the irrepressible yearning to return, suddenly reveals to her the existence of the past, the power of the past, of her past; in the house of her life there are windows now, windows opening to the rear, onto what she has experienced; from now on her existence will be inconceivable without these windows.”

“Now time has a very different look; it is no longer the conquering present capturing the future; it is the present conquered and captured and carried off by the past.”

“Tenía ganas de hacer algo para que ya no le quedara escapatoria. Tenía ganas de destruir brutalmente todo el pasado de sus últimos siete años.Era el vértigo. El embriagador, el insuperable deseo de caer. También podriamos llamarlo la borrachera de la debilidad. Uno se percata de su debilidad y no quiere luchar contra ella, sino entregarse.Está borracho de su debilidad, quiere ser aún más débil, quiere caer en medio de la plaza, ante los ojos de todos, quiere estar abajo y aún más abajo que abajo.”

“Aslında, gerçekten ciddi olan sorular bir çocuğun bile dile getirebileceği sorulardır.Yalnızca en çocuksu sorular gerçekten ciddi olan sorulardır.Cevapları olmayan sorulardır bunlar.Cevabı olmayan soru aşılamayacak bir engeldir.Başka bir deyişle insani olasılıkların sınırlarını belirleyen ,insan varoluşunun sınırlarını saptayan cevabı olmayan sorulardır.”

“Bu dünyada gençlik ve güzelliğin bir anlamı yoktu; birbirinin tıpatıp eşi, ruhları görünmez olmuş bedenlerle dolu uçsuz bucaksız bir toplama kampından başka bir şey değildi yaşadığımız dünya.”

“Rastlantıların, sadece rastlantıların söyleyecek bir sözü vardır bize. Gereklilikten doğan, olmasını beklediğimiz, günbegün yinelenen her şey dilsizdir. Sadece rastlantılar bir şeyler söyler bize.”

“Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures.”

“Toinenkin seikka kohotti hänet muita korkeammalle: hän oli laskenut pöydälle avoimen kirjan. Siinä ravintolassa ei kukaan toinen ollut koskaan laskenut pöydälle avointa kirjaa. Kirja oli Terezalle salaisen killan tunnus. Hän saattoi taistella ympärillään leviävää karkeuden maailmaa vastaan vain yhdellä aseella: kirjoilla, varsinkin romaaneilla, joita hän lainasi kaupunginkirjastosta. Hän oli lukenut paljon, Fieldingistä Thomas Manniin. Kirjat olivat hänen näennäispakonsa elämästä, joka ei tyydyttänyt häntä. Mutta niillä oli merkityksensä myös esineinä: hänestä oli hauskaa kulkea kadulla kirja kainalossa. Hän käytti kirjaa kuin edellisen vuosisadan keikari tyylikästä keppiä. Kirja erotti hänet muista.”

“Einmal ist keinmal”

“I cannot hate them because nothing binds me to them; I have nothing in common with them.”

“...in our time art is encrusted with a noisy, opaque, logorrhea of theory that prevents a work from coming into direct, media free, non-interpreted contact with its viewer (its reader, its listener)”

“Our historical experience teaches us that men imitate one another, that their attitudes are statistically calculable, their opinions manipulable, and that man is therefore less an individual (a subject) than an element in a mass.”

“Bacon's portraits are an interrogation on the limits of the self. Up to what degree of distortion does an individual still remain himself? To what degree of distortion does a beloved person still remain a beloved person? For how long does a cherished face growing remote through illness, through madness, through hatred, through death still remain recognizable? Where is the border beyond which a self ceases to be a self?”

“Why is it that a dog's menstruation made her lighthearted and gay, while her own menstruation made her squeamish? The answer seems simple to me: dogs were never expelled from Paradise. Karenin knew nothing about the duality of body and soul and had no concept of disgust. That is why Tereza felt so free and easy with him. (And that is why it is so dangerous to turn an animal into a machina animata, a cow into an automaton for the production of milk. By so doing, man cuts the thread binding him to Paradise and has nothing left to hold or comfort him on his flight through the emptiness of time.)”

“Todos nós temos necessidade de ser olhados. Podemos ser classificados em quatro categorias, segundo o tipo de olhar sob o qual queremos viver.A primeira procura um olhar de um número infinito de olhos anônimos, em outras palavras, o olhar do público.(...)Na segunda categoria, estão aqueles que não podem viver sem o olhar de numerosos olhos famliares. São os organizadores incansáveis de coquetéis e jantares. São mais felizes que os da primeira categoria, que, quando perdem o seu público, imaginam que a luz se apagou na sala de suas vidas. É o que acontece a todos, mais dia, menos dia. As pessoas da segunda categoria, pelo contrário, sempre conseguem arrumar quem as olhe. (...)Em seguida, vem a terceira categoria, as dos que têm necessidade de viver sob o olhar do ser amado. A situação deles é tão perigosa quanto a daqueles do primeiro grupo. Basta que os olhos do ser amado se fechem para que a sala fique mergulhada na escuridão.(...)Por fim, existe a quarta categoria, a mais rara, a dos que vivem sob os olhares imaginários dos ausentes. São os sonhadores. Por exemplo, Franz. Se ele chegou até a fronteira do Camboja, foi unicamente por causa de Sabina. O ônibus chacoalha na estrada da Tailândia e ele sente que os olhos de Sabina estão pousados sob ele.”

“to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with other's misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion -joy , anxiety, happiness, pain”

“to love someone out of compassion means not really to love”

“in languages that derive from Latin "compassion" means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer”

“love doesn't make itself felt in the desire for copulation ( a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman)”

“he could not quite understand what had happened. he began to sense an aura of hitherto unknown happiness emanating from them”

“he tried to design his life in such a way that no woman could move in with a suitcase”

“he realized he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love”