“Where are all those virtues of unreason that have shaped our idea of love?” — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory” — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The emotion of love gives all of us a misleading illusion of knowing the other. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“... he realized that the path of love, which Bertlef had suggested, was closed to him; it was the path of saints,… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Love is a battle," said Marie-Claude, still smiling. "And I plan to go on fighting. To the end." Love is a battle?"… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
There are things that can be accomplished only by violence. Physical love is unthinkable without violence. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“The termites of reduction have always gnawed away at life: even the greatest love ends up as a skeleton of feeble memories.” — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
But was it love? The feeling of wanting to die beside her was clearly exaggerated: he had seen her only once before… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
...he took a look at the blond girl's eyes and knew that he must not take part in the rigged game in… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
How could she feel nostalgia when he was right in front of her? How can you suffer from the absence of a… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“We can never establish with certainty which part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions--love, antipathy, charity, or… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith,… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“It seemed to me an error in reasoning for a man to isolate a woman he loves from all the circumstances in… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“Back at home, after some prodding from Tereza, he admitted that he had been jealous watching her dance with a colleague of… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
But deep down she said to herself, Franz maybe strong, but his strength is directed outward; when it comes to the people… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“Let us define our terms. A woman who writes her lover four letters a day is not a graphomaniac, she is simply… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
This was exactly what the girl had most dreaded all her life and had scrupulously avoided until now: lovemaking without emotion or… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Laughter, on the other hand, " Petrarch went on, "is an explosion that tears us away from the world and throws us… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Every love relationship rests on an unwritten agreement unthinkingly concluded by the lovers in the first weeks of their love. They are… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“If in the past people would listen to music out of love for music, nowadays it roars everywhere and all the time,… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“He looked at her and tried to discover behind her lascivious expression the familiar features that he loved tenderly. It was as… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“She knew that she had become a burden to him: she took things too seriously, turning everything into a tragedy, and failed… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“Man cannot do without feelings, but the moment they are considered values in themselves, criteria of truth, justifications for kinds of behavior,… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“Every one of my novels could be entitled The Unbearable Lightness of Being or The Joke or Laughable Loves; the titles are… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“He who gives himself up like a prisoner of war must give up his weapons as well. And deprived in advance of… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Tell me, where in life is there a value that would make us consider suicide uncalled for on principle! Love? Or friendship?… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Through the air floated only important words, and Flajsman said to himself that love has but one true measure, and that is… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
If excitement is a mechanism our Creator uses for His own amusement, love is something that belongs to us alone and enables… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“Tomas came to this conclusion: Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“She refused at first, saying it would make a mockery of their love. She loved him too much to admit that what… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent,… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
“From that time on they both looked forward to sleeping together. I might even say that the goal of their lovemaking was not so… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
“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… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
The beauty of New York is unintentional; it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern. — Milan Kundera Copy Share
Children, Never look Back!" and this meant that we must never allow the future to be weighed down by memory . for children have… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
“Our lives may be separate, but they run in the same direction, like parallel lines.” — Milan Kundera Copy Share
“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… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
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.… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
“He remained annoyed with himself until he realized that not knowing what he wanted was actually quite natural. We can never know what to… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
“Whenever I think about ancient cultures nostalgia seizes me. Perhaps this is nothing but envy of the sweet slowness of the history of that… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
“Do stories, apart from happening, being, have something to say? For all my skepticism, some trace of irrational superstition did survive in me, the… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
“Os extremos delimitam a fronteira para além da qual a vida termina, e a paixão pelo extremismo, tanto em arte como em política, é… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by… — Milan Kundera Copy Share
Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. — Milan Kundera Copy Share
