Quotes by Milan Kundera

About Milan Kundera:

Milan Kundera is a Czech-born writer who has been living in exile in France since 1975, having become a naturalised citizen in 1981. He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in book stores."
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Art must always stand guard against stirring emotions that lie outside the aesthetic: sexual arousal, terror, disgust, shock.

Milan Kundera

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

Milan Kundera

Isn't that exactly the definition of biography? An artificial logic imposed on an 'incoherent succession of images'?

Milan Kundera

Fortunately, I read (the books) without knowing what I was in for, and the best thing that can ever happen to a reader happened to me: I loved something that, by conviction (or by my nature) I should not have loved

Milan Kundera

Such are the Splendors and Miseries of memory: it is proud of its ability to keep truthful track of the logical sequence of past events; but when it comes to how we experienced them at the time, memory feels no obligation to truth.

Milan Kundera

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

Milan Kundera

Today I know this: when it comes time to take stock, the most painful wound is that of broken friendships; and there is nothing more foolish than to sacrifice a friendship to politics.

Milan Kundera

(God) being the old man invented in order to, and with whom to, hold long conversations.

Milan Kundera

The novel was born with the Modern Era, which made man, to quote Heidegger, the "only real subject," the ground for everything. It is largely through the novel that man as an individual was established on the European scene. Away from the novel, in o...

Milan Kundera

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.

Milan Kundera

When his wife was at his side, she was also in front of him, marking out the horizon of his life. Now the horizon is empty: the view has changed.

Milan Kundera

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

Milan Kundera

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.

Milan Kundera

Even painful memories are ties that bind.

Milan Kundera

Al igual que todos nosotros, Klima también consideraba real únicamente aquello que llega a nuestra vida desde dentro, gradual, orgánicamente, mientras que a lo que llega desde fuera, inesperada y casualmente, lo veía como si fuera una invasión d...

Milan Kundera

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 him and said: 'I see your vanity through the hole in yo...

Milan Kundera

For he was aware of the great secret of life: Women don't look for handsome men. Women look for men who have had beautiful women. Having an ugly mistress is therefore a fatal mistake.

Milan Kundera

A mismatched outfit, a slightly defective denture, an exquisite mediocrity of the soul-those are the details that make a woman real, alive. The women you see on posters or in fashion magazines-the ones all the women try to imitate nowadays-how can th...

Milan Kundera

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything....The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that at...

Milan Kundera

L'avenir n'est qu'un vide indifférent qui n'intéresse personne, mais le passé est plein de vie et son visage irrite, révolte, blesse, au point que nous voulons le détruire et le repeindre.

Milan Kundera

They were ready to sell people a future in exchange for their past... They wanted to compel him to cast his life away and become a shadow, a man without past, an actor without a role, and turn even his castaway life, even the role the actor had aband...

Milan Kundera

Author Bio

  • NameMilan Kundera
  • DescriptionCzech author of Czech and French literature
  • BornApril 1, 1929
  • CountryFrance; Czech Republic
  • ProfessionWriter; Screenwriter; Translator; Novelist; Playwright
  • WorksThe Joke; The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting; The Unbearable Lightness Of Being
  • AwardsAustrian State Prize For European Literature; Herder Prize; Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca; Medal Of Merit; Prix Médicis; Legion Of Honour; Vilenica Prize