Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: The criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.
("The Unbearable Lightness of Being")
More Quotes from Milan Kundera:
The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of features. It reflects neither character nor soul, nor what we call the self. The face is only the serial number of a specimen.Milan Kundera
This is the image from which he was born...... Characters are not born, like people, of woman they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor, containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility......the characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them and equally horrified by them......
Milan Kundera
Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity.
Milan Kundera
Solitude a sweet absence of looks.
Milan Kundera
From tender youth we are told by father and teacher that betrayal is the most heinous offense imaginable. But what is betrayal?…Betrayal means breaking ranks and breaking off into the unknown. Sabina knew of nothing more magnificent than going off into the unknown.
Milan Kundera
For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence?
Milan Kundera
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Based on Topics: Communism & Marxism Quotes, Crime Quotes, People Quotes, Truth Quotes, Work & Career QuotesYou can either read something many times in order to be assured that you got it all, or else you can define your purpose and use techniques which will assure that you have met it and gotten what you need.
E. F. Schumacher
When I see a movie with someone it's kind of uncomfortable.
S. E. Hinton
Malice is of a low stature, but it hath very long arms.
George Savile