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Life Quotes by Milan Kundera

138 Life quotes by Milan Kundera

All Life quotes Milan Kundera’s page

The future is only an indifferent void, no one cares about, but the past is filled with life. The quotes acknowledge that we often don’t know what we want and that unknown fragments of existence give meaning to stories. They also remind us that perfection is a myth and that life itself is the only certainty.

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There is no perfection only life

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“life is like weeds”

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“... ‘the dead far outnumber the living.”

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“If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.”

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“No matter how brutal life becomes, peace always reign in the cemetery.”

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“If he invited her to come, then come she would, and offer him up her life.”

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And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?

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“Her life was split. Both day and night were competing for her.”

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“Anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself.”

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Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.

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Any new possibility that existence acquires, even the least likely, transforms everything about existence.

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“Man stopped wanting to walk, to walk on his own feet and enjoy it. What's more he longer saw his own life…

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

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“Human life is bounded by two chasms: fanaticism on one side, absolute skepticism on the other.”

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

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“He yearned to step out of his life the way one steps out of a house into the street.”

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“A whole life has already been determined at a stage when we didn't know a thing”

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From the top of the staircase she sees the London train, modern and elegant, and she tells herself again: Whether it's good…

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“In spite of their love, they had made each other's life a hell. The fact that they loved each other was merely…

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“The feeling, the irrepressible yearning to return, suddenly reveals to her the existence of the past, the power of the past, of…

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Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at…

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If I had two lives, in one life I could invite her to stay at my place, and in the second life…

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“People meet in the course of life, they talk together, they discuss, they quarrel, without realizing that they're talking to one another…

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The purpose of the poetry is not to dazzle us with an astonishing thought, but to make one moment of existence unforgettable…

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“For it is clear immediately: human life as such is a defeat. All we can do in the face of that ineluctable…

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“we live everything as it comes, without warning , like an actor going on cold. and what can life be worth if…

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“No matter what people say, life is marvelous, if you want to know who gets mu goats, it's those killjoy pessimists, even…

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“It takes so little, so infinitely little, for someone to find himself on the other side of the border, where everything -…

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“Mesmerized, all she can do is watch this piece of her life move off; all she can do is watch it and…

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The heaviest of burdens is simultaneously an image of life's most intense fullfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come…

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This symmetrical composition--the same motif at the beginning and at the end--may seem quite "novelistic" to you, and I am willing to…

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“They [human lives] are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitious occurrence (Beethoven’s music, death…

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There would seem to be nothing more obvious, more tangible and palpable than the present moment. And yet it eludes us completely.…

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The novel is a meditation on existence as seen through the medium of imaginary characters.

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“We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the…

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Ah, ladies and gentlemen, a man lives a sad life when he cannot take anything or anyone seriously.

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Living is being happy: seeing, hearing, touching, drinking, eating, urinating, defecating, diving into the water and gazing at the sky, laughing and…

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“History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever…

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Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age…

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

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More by Milan Kundera

“The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent,…

“From that time on they both looked forward to sleeping together. I might even say that the goal of their lovemaking was not so…

“Beauty in the European sense has always had a premeditated quality to it. We've always had an aesthetic intention and a long-range plan. That's…

The beauty of New York is unintentional; it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern.

Children, Never look Back!" and this meant that we must never allow the future to be weighed down by memory . for children have…

“Our lives may be separate, but they run in the same direction, like parallel lines.”

“Having a child is to show an absolute accord with mankind. If I have a child, it's as though I'm saying: I was born…

Love is a battle," said Marie-Claude, still smiling. "And I plan to go on fighting. To the end." Love is a battle?" said Franz.…

“He remained annoyed with himself until he realized that not knowing what he wanted was actually quite natural. We can never know what to…

“Whenever I think about ancient cultures nostalgia seizes me. Perhaps this is nothing but envy of the sweet slowness of the history of that…

When we ignore the body, we are more easily victimized by it.

“Do stories, apart from happening, being, have something to say? For all my skepticism, some trace of irrational superstition did survive in me, the…

“Os extremos delimitam a fronteira para além da qual a vida termina, e a paixão pelo extremismo, tanto em arte como em política, é…

The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by…

Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo.