The novel is a meditation on existence as seen through the medium of imaginary characters. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“From childhood, she had regarded books as the emblems of a secret brotherhood.” — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The novel is a territory where one does not make assertions; it is a territory of play and of hypotheses. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
she loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“She loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It differentiated her from the others” — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
No one can get really drunk on a novel or a painting, but who can help getting drunk on Reethoven's Ninth, Rartok's… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
She regarded books as the emblems of secret brotherhood. A man with this sort of library couldn't possibly hurt her. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
In order to make the novel into a polyhistorical illumination of existence, you need to master the technique of ellipsis, the art… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“I don't know whether my nation will perish and I don't know which of my characters is right. I invent stories, confront… — 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
All novels . . . are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“In Tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood. For she had but a single weapon against the world of… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
it is wrong to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences... but it is right to chide man for being… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“A novel does not assert anything, a novel poses questions... The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. When… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“The novel has accompanied man uninterruptedly and faithfully since the beginning of the Modern Era. It was then that the "passion to… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Graphomania (a mania for writing books) inevitably takes on epidemic proportions when a society develops to the point of creating three basic… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The present era grabs everything that was ever written in order to transform it into films, TV programs; or cartoons. What is… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“the world has become man's right and everything in it has become a right: the desire for love the right to love,… — milan kundera Copy Share Image
The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence,… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“Early in the novel that Tereza clutched under her arm when she went to visit Tomas, Anna meets Vronsky in curious circumstances:… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. that is why I am equally fond of them all and equally… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question, — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
Great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“The novel's spirit is the spirit of complexity. . . . The novel's spirit is the spirity of continuity . . .… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
The beauty of New York is unintentional; it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
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 Image
“Our lives may be separate, but they run in the same direction, like parallel lines.” — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
