Milan Kundera Quotes

“Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful.”

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

“You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.”

“The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”

“A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.”

“Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. 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.”

“But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave.”

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

“Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).”

“The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us.”

“What can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”