Quotes from Milan Kundera

Is it right to raise one's voice when others are being silenced? Yes.

What does it mean, anyway, to 'retract' what you've said? How can anyone state categorically that a thought he once had is no longer valid? In modern times a thought can be refuted , yes, but not retracted . (p. 179)

We can never know what to want, because living only one life, we can neither compare it with our precious lives nor perfect it in our lives to come

Internal imperatives are all the more powerful and therefore all the more of an inducement to revolt.

To ensure that erotic friendship never grew into the aggression of love, he would only meet each of his long-term mistresses only at long intervals. He considered this method flawless and propagated it among his friends: the important thing is to abide by the rules of threes. Either you see a woman three times in quick succession and then never again, or you maintain relations over the years but make sure that the rendezvous are at least three weeks apart.

The moment Kafka attracts more attenetion than Joseph K., Kafka's posthumous death begins.

Now he too tried hard to think of something else (it was the only thing they had in common), so as to be able to go on making love to her.

That idea would be embarrassing because there is something excessive about it, it would take to much energy to defend (while the best possible progressive idea, so to speak, defends itself)...

For seven years he had lived bound to her,his every step subject to her scrutiny. She might as well have chained iron balls to his ankles. Suddenly his step was much lighter. He soared. He had entered Parmenides' magic field: he was enjoying the sweet lightness of being''.

Consciousness of being loved separates a woman from the herd

Because people who decline organized leisure activities are deserters from the great common struggle against boredom, and they deserve neither attention nor helmets.

It is a tragicomic fact that our proper upbringing has become an ally of the secret police. (...) The Tell the truth! imperative drummed into us so automatically that we feel ashamed of lying even to a secret policeman.