Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera
Milan Kunderais a Czech-born writer who went into exile in France in 1975, and became a naturalised French 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"...
NationalityCzechoslovakian
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth1 April 1929
strong two light
Seeing is limited by two borders: Strong light, which blinds, and total darkness.
real animal tests
Mankind's real moral test, a test so radical and so deep that it escapes our gaze, is probably the one of its relations with those that are the most at its mercy; the Animals.
lying want madmen
I have to lie, if I don't want to take madmen seriously and become a madman myself
friendship memories flower
To ensure that the self doesn't shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends.
life understanding age
Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.
humility exaggeration-is together
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight.
actors warning rehearsal
We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold.
character borders possibility
The characters in my novels are my own unrealised possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have circumvented.
memories degrees forget
The degree of slowness is directionally proportional to the intensity of memory. The degree of speed is directionally proportional to the intensity of forgetting.
mean wine bottles
When a private talk over a bottle of wine is broadcast on the radio, what can it mean but that the world is turning into a concentration camp?
writing ambition creative
The novelist's ambition is not to do something better than his predecessors but to see what they did not see, say what they did not say.
conflict intimidating resolution
He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.
eye people dreamer
We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under . . . The fourth category, the rarest, is the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers.
want unseen disappear
For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words.