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
maturity mind doe
It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.
memories doe film
Memory does not make films, it makes photographs.
lying mean doe
What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating.
doe morality ethics
A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality.
believe doe adults
To die; to decide to die; that's much easier for an adolescent than for an adult. What? Doesn't death strip an adolescent of a far larger portion of future? Certainly it does, but for a young person, the future is a remote, abstract, unreal thing he doesn't really believe in.
degrees doe coincidence
For existential mathematics, which does not exist, would probably propose this equation: the value of coincidence equals the degree of its improbability.
feelings doe elements
The ludicrous element in our feeling does not make them any less authentic.
mean writing doe
To be a writer does not mean to preach a truth, it means to discover a truth.
life outline quite rehearsal sketch whereas worth
We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always a sketch. No sketch is not quite the right word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch of nothing, an outline with no picture.
Broch is an inspiration to us, not only because of what he accomplished, but also because of all that he aimed at and could not attain.
art endless master novel technique trap
In order to make the novel into a polyhistorical illumination of existence, you need to master the technique of ellipsis, the art of condensation. Otherwise, you fall into the trap of endless length.
change
Every change of scene requires new expositions, descriptions, explanations.
almost discreet incapable life speaking states
I am incapable of speaking of myself and of my life and the states of my soul, I am discreet to an almost pathological degree, and there is nothing I can do against that.
accused bed breakfast bring brought careful dangerous unless
O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once youve brought breakfast in bed youll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal.