Milan Kundera quotes - page 8

Sabina's initial inner revolt against Communism was aesthetic rather than ethical in character. What repelled her was not nearly so much the ugliness of the Communist world (ruined castles transformed into cow sheds) as the mask of beauty it tried to wear - in other words, Communist kitsch. (Milan Kundera)
The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. View quote
Milan Kundera
To love someone out of compassion means not really to love. View quote
Milan Kundera
Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion. View quote
Milan Kundera
It is always that way: between the moment he meets her again and the moment he recognizes her for the woman he loves, he has some distance to go. View quote
Milan Kundera
For the first few seconds, she was afraid he would throw her out because of the crude noises she was making, but then he put his arms around her. She was grateful to him for ignoring her rumbles, and she kissed him passionately, her eyes misting. View quote
Milan Kundera
Love is our freedom. View quote
Milan Kundera
What makes a leftist a leftist is not this or that theory but his ability to integrate any theory into the kitsch called the Grand March. View quote
Milan Kundera
He felt as if she no longer existed for him, had gone off somewhere, into some other life where, if he should meet her, he would no longer recognize her. View quote
Milan Kundera
...[O]f a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, [...] everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted. View quote
Milan Kundera
But is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about? (Milan Kundera)
Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray. View quote
Milan Kundera
Eroticism is like a dance: one always leads the other. View quote
Milan Kundera
Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought. View quote
Milan Kundera
Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end. View quote
Milan Kundera
Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud. View quote
Milan Kundera
Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries. View quote
Milan Kundera
No matter how much we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition. View quote
Milan Kundera
I find myself fascinating. View quote
Milan Kundera
Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten. View quote
Milan Kundera
The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness. (Milan Kundera)
For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence? View quote
Milan Kundera
I think I am a much better actor than I have allowed myself to be. View quote
Milan Kundera
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight. View quote
Milan Kundera
He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him. View quote
Milan Kundera