Quote
"The only thing they bequeathed to him was a fear of women. Tomas desired but feared them. Needing to create a compromise between fear and desire, he devised what he called ‘erotic friendship.’ He would tell his mistresses: the only relationship that can make both partners happy is the one in which sentimentality has no place and neither partner makes any claim on the life and freedom of the other."

— from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tags: Milan Kundera the unbearable lightness of being women
December 02, 2012
4 notes
Quote
"Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love."

— from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tags: metaphors love Milan Kundera the unbearable lightness of being
December 02, 2012
10 notes
Quote
"We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives or perfect it in our lives to come."

— from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tags: Milan Kundera the unbearable lightness of being desire
December 02, 2012
8 notes
Quote
"But was it love? The feeling of wanting to die beside her was clearly exaggerated: he had seen her only once before in his life! Was it simply the hysteria of a man who, aware deep down of his inaptitude for love, felt the self-deluding need to simulate it?"

— from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tags: Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being love Tomas
December 02, 2012
11 notes
Quote
"He smelled the delicate aroma of her fever and breathed it in, as if trying to glut himself with the intimacy of her body. And all at once he fancied she had been with him for many years and was dying. He had a sudden clear feeling that he would not survive her death. He would lie down beside her and want to die with her."

— from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera Tomas Tereza love death
December 02, 2012
6 notes
Quote
"In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens (das schwerste Gewicht)."

— from The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tags: Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being eternal return Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche das schwerste Gewicht
December 02, 2012
1 note
Photo
:3

:3

(Source: whorevidal)

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Karenin Tomas Tereza Daniel Day Lewis Juliette Binoche film
July 17, 2012
26 notes
Photo
rilkes: (by to ride a white horse)

rilkes:

(by to ride a white horse)

(via consistentcontradiction)

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being book cover
February 08, 2011
49 notes
Photo
It made my day when I found this in a bathroom stall in the basement of VCU’s Cabell Library.

It made my day when I found this in a bathroom stall in the basement of VCU’s Cabell Library.

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being love
November 05, 2010
70 notes
Quote
"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)."

— Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (via oxmajik)

(Source: kabinessence, via consistentcontradiction)

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being love sleep sex desire
October 23, 2010
19 notes
Photo
teachingliteracy: (via awritersruminations)

teachingliteracy:

(via awritersruminations)

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being book covers
October 18, 2010
55 notes
Link

Viennese Trainspotter: A feminist analysis of two chapters from Milan Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

viennesetrainspotter:

First, you must understand that Milan Kundera is one of my favourite authors. He is an existentialist. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being he takes an admirable stance on animal rights. He discusses Czech politics in a fascinating manner in each of his books. One of his best and most oft-used…

Tags: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting The Unbearable Lightness of Being Mirek Zdena Tomas Tereza Sabina fidelity feminism
October 12, 2010
5 notes
Quote
"The worst thing isn’t that the world isn’t free, but that people have unlearned their freedom."

— Milan Kundera (Life Is Elsewhere) (via bodywithoutorgans) (via fuckyeahexistentialism)

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being freedom
September 22, 2010
273 notes
Quote
"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."

— Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being (via seventyfourspecies)

(Source: quote-book, via consistentcontradiction)

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
September 21, 2010
778 notes
Photo
thebeatthatmys2skipped: fuckyeahjuliettebinoche: (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

thebeatthatmys2skipped:

fuckyeahjuliettebinoche:

(The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

Tags: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Juliette Binoche film
September 16, 2010
61 notes

About

portrait

Milan Kundera is a Czech writer living in France. His most famous oeuvres include The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Even with a claim to a great many successes, Kundera remains an underrated existentialist writer. This blog is dedicated to him.

Feel free to submit any Kunderaisms!