For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence? – 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
No act is of itself either good or bad. Only its place in the order of things makes it good or bad. – Milan Kundera
There are metaphysical problems, problems of human existence, that philosophy has never known how to grasp in all their concreteness and that only the novel can seize. – Milan Kundera
Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought. – Milan Kundera
The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in and for other people. – Milan Kundera
People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they’re going deaf, it has to be played louder still. – Milan Kundera
Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity. – Milan Kundera
Listening to a news broadcast is like smoking a cigarette and crushing the butt in the ashtray. – Milan Kundera
No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches. – Milan Kundera
A worker may be the hammer’s master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it is meant to be handled, while the user of the tool can only have an approximate idea. – Milan Kundera
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. – Milan Kundera
