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
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.
conflict intimidating resolution
He took over anger to intimidate subordinates, and in time anger took over him.
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.
drama serious combination
The combination of a frivolous form and a serious subject immediately unmasks the truth about our dramas.
feelings doe elements
The ludicrous element in our feeling does not make them any less authentic.
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.
love-is bird magic
Necessity knows no magic formulae-they are all left to chance. If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assisi's shoulders.
perfection
There is no perfection only life
messages chance speak
Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us.
love-is definitions definition-of-love
Love is a continual interrogation. I don’t know of a better definition of love.
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.
love-is half unbearable
Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.
ambition form lifelong
My lifelong ambition has been to unite the utmost seriousness of question with the utmost lightness of form.
historical criticism gestures
Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten.