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

Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten.

Milan Kundera

There are no small parts. Only small actors.

Milan Kundera

Man's world is the planet of inexperience.

Milan Kundera

There are metaphysical problems, problems of human existence, that philosophy has never known how to grasp in all their concreteness and that only the novel can seize.

Milan Kundera

I think I am a much better actor than I have allowed myself to be.

Milan Kundera

Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.

Milan Kundera

Eroticism is like a dance: one always leads the other.

Milan Kundera

For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence?

Milan Kundera

Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought.

Milan Kundera

When I was a little boy in short pants, I dreamed about a miraculous ointment that would make me invisible. Then I became an adult, began to write, and wanted to be successful. Now I'm successful and would like to have the ointment that would make me...

Milan Kundera

Broch is an inspiration to us, not only because of what he accomplished, but also because of all that he aimed at and could not attain.

Milan Kundera

I remember that the day I finished 'The Angels,' part three of 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting', I was terribly proud of myself. I was sure that I had discovered the key to a new way of putting together a narrative.

Milan Kundera

Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another.

Milan Kundera

Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud.

Milan Kundera

There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.

Milan Kundera

Estoy bajo el agua y los latidos de mi corazón producen círculos en la superficie.

Milan Kundera

Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental test…consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals.

Milan Kundera

Aesthetic racism is almost always a sign of inexperience. Those who have not made their way far enough into the world of amorous delights judge women only by what can be seen. But those who really know women understand that the eye reveals only a min...

Milan Kundera

Great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors.

Milan Kundera

That conversation with the taxi driver suddenly made clear to me the essence of the writer's occupation. We write books because our children aren't interested in us. We address ourselves to an anonymous world because our wives plug their ears when we...

Milan Kundera

For existential mathematics, which does not exist, would probably propose this equation: the value of coincidence equals the degree of its improbability.

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