Quotes by Milan Kundera
“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.”— Milan Kundera
“For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone.”— Milan Kundera
“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold.”— Milan Kundera
“The Greek word for 'return' is nostos. Algos means 'suffering.' So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”— Milan Kundera
“What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”— Milan Kundera
“The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.”— Milan Kundera
“To make love with a woman and to sleep with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite.”— Milan Kundera
“True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.”— Milan Kundera
“Man cannot do without a permanent trust in something indestructible in himself, though both the indestructible element and his trust may remain permanently hidden from him.”— Milan Kundera