anxiety

compassion

eroticism

eternal recurrence

happiness

hate

history

jealousy

kitsch

laughter

love

music

novel

objectification

optimism

privacy

solitude

speed

writer

nationality

Czech

French

occupation / innovator as

novelist

innovator in the field of

magical realism

translator

screenwriter

playwright

university teacher

poet

scientific organization

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

religion

atheism

's source lies in the future. If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget your worries.

The source of anxiety lies in the future. If you can keep the future out of mind, you can forget your worries.

is the heaviest of things. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.

is like a dance: one always leads the other.

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

is the heaviest of burdens because to have every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times is to be nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross.

If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens.

 traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.

Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.

is the suprahuman force of an omnipotent society.

is like a bad toothache which does not let a person do anything, not even sit still, and can only be walked off.

Jealousy is like a bad toothache. It does not let a person do anything, not even sit still. It can only be walked off

is a screen with which to hide our eyes from death.

's sound is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness.

The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness. Milan Kundera

is like an empire: when the idea it is founded on crumbles, it, too, fades away.

Loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.

is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

is when the gaze of a man seems to fasten coldly on the woman, as if it were measuring, weighing, evaluating, choosing her, as if, in other words, it were turning her into a thing.

*Time is the only critic without ambition.

is the very ground of the life of the individual. In private we bad-mouth our friends and use coarse language... that we act different in private than in public is everyone's most conspicuous experience. It is an obvious fact which, curiously, remains unconscious, unacknowledged, forever obscured by lyrical dreams of the transparent glass house, it is rarely understood to be the value one must defend beyond all others.

But one day in 1970 or 1971, with the intent to discredit Prochazka, the police began to broadcast these conversations [with Professor Vaclav Cerny, with whom he liked to drink and talk] as a radio serial. For the police it was an audacious, unprecedented act. And, surprisingly: it nearly succeeded... instantly Prochazka was discredited: because in private, a person says all sorts of things, slurs friends, uses coarse language, acts silly, tells dirty jokes, repeats himself, makes a companion laugh by shocking him with outrageous talk, floats heretical ideas he'd never admit in public, and so forth. Of course, we all act like Prochazka, in private we bad-mouth our friends and use coarse language... that we act different in private than in public is everyone's most conspicuous experience, it is the very ground of the life of the individual... curiously, this obvious fact remains unconscious, unacknowledged, forever obscured by lyrical dreams of the transparent glass house, it is rarely understood to be the value one must defend beyond all others. Thus only gradually did people realize (though their rage was all the greater) that the real scandal was not Prochazka's daring talk but the rape of his life... they realized (as if by electric shock) that private and public are two essentially different worlds and that respect for that difference is the indispensable condition, the sine qua non, for a man to live free... that the curtain separating these two worlds is not to be tampered with, and that curtain-rippers are criminals. And because the curtain-rippers were serving a hated regime, they were unanimously held to be particularly contemptible criminals. (Kundera, 1984, 261)

is the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed on man. In a machine, a man's own body is outside the process, and he gives over to a speed that is noncorporeal, nonmaterial, pure speed, speed itself, ecstasy speed.

Speed is the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed on man. As opposed to a motorcyclist, the runner is always present in his body, forever required to think about his blisters, his exhaustion; when he runs he feels his weight, his age, more conscious than ever of himself and of his time of life. This all changes when man delegates the faculty of speed to a machine: from then on, his own body is outside the process, and he gives over to a speed that is noncorporeal, nonmaterial, pure speed, speed itself, ecstasy speed.

is one who writes not to preach a truth, but to discover a truth.

To be a writer does not mean to preach a truth, it means to discover a truth. (Milan Kundera)

Milan KunderaThinkers

Milan Kundera