Unbearable Lightness Of Being Quotes

Every one of my novels could be entitled The Unbearable Lightness of Being or The Joke or Laughable Loves; the titles are interchangeable, they reflect the small number of themes that obsess me, define me, and unfortunately, restrict me. Beyond these themes, I have nothing else to say or write. ~ Milan Kundera

...man is as much a parasite on the cow as the tapeworm is on man: We have sucked their udders like leeches. "Man the cow parasite" is probably how non-man defines man in his zoology books ~ Unbearable Lightness Of Being

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Tereza lives with Tomas, but her love requires mobilization of all her strength, and suddenly she can't go on, she longs to retreat down below, to where she came from. And I ask myself: What is happening with her? And this is the answer I find: She is overcome by vertigo. But what is vertigo? I look for a definition and I say: "A heady, insuperable longing to fall." But immediately I correct myself, I sharpen the definition: Vertigo is "the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down. Vertigo is one of the keys to understanding Tereza ~ Milan Kundera

In the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. ~ Milan Kundera

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? ~ Milan Kundera

We all need someone to look at us. We can be divided into four categories according to the kind of look we wish to live under . . . The fourth category, the rarest, is the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers. ~ Milan Kundera

Living for Sabina meant seeing. Seeing is limited by two borders: strong light, which blinds, and total darkness. Perhaps that was what motivated Sabina's distaste for all extremism. Extremes mean borders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death. ~ Milan Kundera

People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. ~ Milan Kundera

Anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself. ~ Milan Kundera

She had an overwhelming desire to tell him, like the most banal of women. Don't let me go, hold me tight, make me your plaything, your slave, be strong! But they were words she could not say.
The only thing she said when he released her from his embrace was, "You don't know how happy I am to be with you." That was the most her reserved nature allowed her to express. ~ Milan Kundera

It is wrong to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences ... but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life a dimension of beauty. ~ Milan Kundera

The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful ... Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory. ~ Milan Kundera

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 senator had only one argument in his favour: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme. ~ Milan Kundera

The world goes on as before, and it turns out that nobody else seems to to notice the unbearable lightness of being. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions. ~ Milan Kundera

For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves nor to others, was possible only away from the public: the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful. Having a public, keeping a public in mind, means living in lies. ~ Milan Kundera

Behold how this drop of seawater
has taken so many forms and names;
it has existed as mist, cloud, rain, dew, and mud,
then plant, animal, and Perfect man;
and yet it was a drop of water
from which these things appeared.
Even so this universe of reason, soul, heavens, and bodies,
was but a drop of water in its beginning and ending.

...When a wave strikes it, the world vanishes;
and when the appointed time comes to heaven and stars,
their being is lost in not being. ~ Mahmud Shabistari

Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company. ~ Milan Kundera

Physical love is unthinkable without violence. ~ Milan Kundera

Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress. ~ Milan Kundera

I thought of the fate of Descartes' famous formulation: man as 'master and proprietor of nature.' Having brought off miracles in science and technology, this 'master and proprietor' is suddenly realizing that he owns nothing and is master neither of nature (it is vanishing, little by little, from the planet), nor of History (it has escaped him), nor of himself (he is led by the irrational forces of his soul). But if God is gone and man is no longer master, then who is master? The planet is moving through the void without any master. There it is, the unbearable lightness of being. ~ Milan Kundera

Dogs do not have many advantages over people, but one of them is extremely important: euthanasia is not forbidden by law in their case; animals have the right to a merciful death. ~ Milan Kundera

It was vertigo. A heady, insuperable longing to fall. We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down. -Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, p. 76 ~ Milan Kundera

She loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others. ~ Milan Kundera

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. ~ Milan Kundera

I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. ~ Milan Kundera

Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass!
The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! ~ Milan Kundera

When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness. We say that something has become a great burden to us. We either bear the burden or fail and go down with it, we struggle with it, win or lose. And Sabina - what had come over her? Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him. Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden, but the unbearable lightness of being. ~ Milan Kundera

We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? ~ Milan Kundera

Metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. ~ 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

Let the planet be convulsed with exploding bombs. ~ Milan Kundera

I don't get angry very often. I lose my temper rarely. And when I do, there's always a legitimate cause. Normally I have a great lightness of being. I take things in a very happy, amused way. ~ Julia Roberts

It would be well, there can be no doubt, for the American people as a whole, if they loved the Real less, and the Ideal somewhat more. It would be well, if there were greater encouragement to lightness of heart and gaiety, and a wider cultivation of what is beautiful, without being eminently and directly useful. ~ Charles Dickens

If for some women flirting is second nature, insignificant, routine, for Tereza it had developed into an important field of research with the goal of teaching her who she was and what she was capable of. But by making it important and serious, she deprived it of its lightness, and it became forced, labored, overdone. She disturbed the balance between promise and lack of guarantee (which, when maintained, is a sign of flirtistic virtue); she promised too ardently, and without making it clear that the promise involved no guarantee on her part. Which is another way of saying that she gave everyone the impression of being there for the taking. But when men responded by asking for what they felt they had been promised, they met with strong resistance, and their only explanation for it was that she was deceitful and malicious. ~ Milan Kundera

Her fingers flew, her fiddle was an entire orchestra, and every note beautifully brought into being struck a chord of satisfaction within her. She wondered at the unfamiliar lightness in her chest and realised she was laughing.
So great was her focus, it took her a while to register the strange expression that crept to Brocker's face as he listened, finger tapping the armrest of his chair. His eyes were fixed behind Fire and to the right, in the direction of Archer's back doorway. Fire comprehended that someone must be standing in Archer's entrance, someone Brocker watched with startled eyes.
And then everything happened at once. Fire recognised the mind in the doorway; she spun around, fiddle and bow screeching apart; she stared at Prince Brigan leaning against the door frame. ~ Kristin Cashore

Her mouth - ah, that lush, sweet mouth - was a garden, and I was on my back, face tipped in adoration to the sun for giving me such brilliance, delightful aromas, and the indescribable lightness of being with her. ~ Julia Kent

In Somali culture hyper-masculinity is the most desired attribute in men. Femininity signifies softness, a lightness of touch: qualities that are aggressively pressed onto young girls and women. When a woman does not possess feminine traits, it is considered an act of mild social resistance. This applies equally to men who are not overtly masculine but the stakes are considerably amplified. If a Somali man is considered feminine he is deemed weak, helpless, pitiful: The underlying message being that femininity is inherently inferior to masculinity. ~ Diriye Osman

My decision not to eat animals anymore was paramount to my growth as a spiritual person. It made me aware of greed and made me more sensitive to cruelty. It made me feel like I was contributing to making the world better and that I was connected to everything around me. I felt like I was part of the whole by respecting every living thing rather than using it and destroying it by living unconsciously. Healing comes from love. And loving every living thing in turn helps you love yourself. ~ Portia De Rossi

As a general proposition, campaigns do not linger on the vice presidential nominee. When they have, it's always meant very bad news for the ticket. Think of Spiro Agnew's foot-in-mouth disease; Tom Eagleton's medical history; the real estate holdings of Geraldine Ferraro's husband; the unbearable lightness of Dan Quayle; Sarah Palin's reading list. ~ Jeff Greenfield

Only a sense of lightness, giddy and dizzying, like flight - of a burden that didn't belong to me being lifted.
Suddenly I knew the truth and the lights surrounding me exploded.
I am free. ~ Andrea Cremer

To grasp the truth is a delicate gesture, like taking a hand in greeting, a lightness of touch is needed if one is to feel the presence of another being. ~ Susan Griffin

My method of equitation consists in distribution of weight by the height of the neck bent at the poll and not at the withers ; propulsion by means of the hocks being brought under the body; and lightness by the loosening of the lower jaw. When we know this, we know everything, and we know^ nothing. We know everything, because these principles are of universal application ; and we know nothing, because they have to be applied practically. ~ Anonymous

I don't know where this pressure came from. I can't blame my parents because it has always felt internal. Like any other parent, my mother celebrated the A grades and the less-than-A grades she felt there was no need to tell anybody about. But not acknowledging the effort that ended in a less than perfect result impacted me as a child. If I didn't win, then we wouldn't tell anyone that I had even competed to save us the embarrassment of acknowledging that someone else was better. Keeping the secret made me think that losing was something to be ashamed of, and that unless I was sure I was going to be the champion there was no point in trying. And there was certainly no point to just having fun. ~ Portia De Rossi

Depression starts from a deeply rooted idea, that as a human being, you are a sinner. Even if you are agnostic, atheistic, or a mystic, sin is a belief that you have violated some internal law of ethics, which causes an inability to regain your divine state of love. It is Fault. Disobedience to a higher power, god, or archetype is another definition from separation of peace of mind.

Even if the god or archetype cannot be proven, it still exists in your mind, thus fault is real in your mind. It's the idea that you have broken an internal rule that separates you from delivery of a promise. This creates depression, which is a long standing feeling of pain due to permanent loss. It is not short term loss. It is complete loss that can never be returned.

When you birthed yourself into this reality, you were vast, elegant, exquisite, intelligent, infinite, and beautiful beyond understanding. You came into this time and space matrix to gain a soul, and that required a lot of experience. Experience is painful. Experience is expansive. Close the door by accepting the loss. ~ Deborah Bravandt

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness? ~ Milan Kundera

And wasn't this what she'd been after--this lightness that came galloping through, grabbing you by the waist and hauling you along with it? How could you not surrender yourself to it, even if you knew you'd end up sitting bruised in the dirt? She supposed there must be another way to experience that breathless rush of being alive--something inward, perhaps?--but she didn't know what it was or how to get there on her own. ~ Sharon Guskin

A great fire at night always has a thrilling and exhilarating effect. This is what explains the attraction of fireworks. But in that case the artistic regularity with which the fire is presented and the complete lack of danger give an impression of lightness and playfulness like the effect of a glass of champaign. A real conflagration is a very different matter. Then the horror and a certain sense of personal danger, together with the exhilarating effect at night, produce on the spectator (though of course not in the householder whose goods are being burnt) a certain concussion of the brain and, as it were, a challenge to those destructive instincts which, alas, lie hidden in every heart, even that of the mildest and most domestic little clerk ... .This sinister sensation is almost always fascinating ... of course, the very man who enjoys the spectacle will rush into the fire himself to save a child or an old woman ... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I pass a construction site, abandoned for the night, and a few blocks later, the playground of the elementary school my son attended, the metal sliding board gleaming under a streetlamp and the swings stirring in the breeze.
There's an energy to these autumn nights that touches something primal inside of me. Something from long ago. From my childhood in western Iowa. I think of high school football games and the stadium lights blazing down on the players. I smell ripening apples, and the sour reek of beer from keg parties in the cornfields. I feel the wind in my face as I ride in the bed of an old pickup truck down a country road at night, dust swirling in the taillights and the entire span of my life yawning out ahead o me.
It's the beautiful thing about youth.
There's a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential.
I love my life, but I haven't felt that lightness of being in ages. Autumn nights like this are as close as I get. ~ Blake Crouch

The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again. ~ Steve Jobs

You have the ability to give so much to the world by emitting feelings of love and well-being, despite what is happening around you. ~ Rhonda Byrne

I guess I feel that I was following my instincts, and at the same time being guided by the best. I became totally intrigued with Louisiana - the people, the food. It is a part of my life. Everything that has happened for me since moving here has just been icing on the cake. ~ Emeril Lagasse

We have come to a parting of the ways,I suppose",said Anne thoughtfully."we had to come to it,do you think,Diana,that being grown up is really as nice as we used to imagine it would be when we were children?"
"I don't know-there are SOME nice things about it,"answered Diana,again caressing her ring with that little smile which always had the effect of making Anne feel suddenly left out and inexperienced."But there are so many puzzling things,too.Sometimes I feel as if being grown-up just frightened me-and then I would give anything to be a little girl again. ~ L.M. Montgomery

When fog and walk come together, you get the opportunity to meet the nothingness! And such a meeting immediately increases your desire to meet the existence! Darkness makes you love the light and nothingness, the existence! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Thank you, Scarlet".
"For what? For being your Tuesday and Thursday girl?"
"For all seven days. Because I think of you on all of them". ~ Sarina Bowen

You know you're my best friend, right?' he said.
I shrugged. I guessed it was true. Now that I wasn't going to be at the parade, they would all hate me. Everything had been carefully choreographed, and me not being there would throw them all off. I realized that kids like Theo and me weren't supposed to have real friends. We were supposed to be all alone and confused. By being each other's friend, we were defying our laws of gravity. ~ Heather O'Neill

We consider the Holocaust as being a sort of strange event taking place on another planet; we never understood in a visceral way that this is something that took place in the heart of man. That's something that you can feel, the genocidal tendency is within human nature. It seems that if we forget about this, our future is also compromised. ~ Laszlo Nemes

Whatever their conscious motives, these men cannot know why they are as they are. As sickening as I find their behavior, I have to admit that if I were to trade places with one of these men, atom for atom, I would be him: There is no extra part of me that could decide to see the world differently or to resist the impulse to victimize other people. Even if you believe that every human being harbors an immortal soul, the problem of responsibility remains: I cannot take credit for the fact that I do not have the soul of psychopath. If I had truly been in Komisarjevsky's shoes on July 23,2007 - that is, if I had his genes and life experience and identical brain (or soul) in an identical state - I would have acted exactly as he did. There is simply no intellectually respectable position from which to deny this. ~ Sam Harris

Being is the soul of every concept, of every judgment and of every reasoning. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

I am very proud of being Jewish. I went to a Jewish school all my life. ~ Anthony Pratt

I am told the settlement of $5 million I am being paid is the largest amount ever paid under the New York right to privacy law ~ Woody Allen

Of course I know what she means. To make art in fandom is to follow your passion at the risk of never being taken seriously. I've written dozens of fics-put them together and you'd have several novels-but who knows what a college admissions officer will think of that as a pastime. Where does 12,000 Tumbler followers rate in relation to a spot in the National Honor Society in their minds? Every week I get anonymous messages in my inbox telling me I should write a real book. Well, haven't I already? What makes what I do different from "real writing"? Is it that I don't use original characters? I guess that makes every Hardy Boys edition, every Star Wars book, every spinoff, sequel, fairy-tale re-telling, historical romance, comic book reboot, and the music Hamilton "not real writing". Or is it that a real book is something printed, that you can hold in your hand, not something you write on the internet? Or is "real writing" something you sell in a store, not give away for free? No, I know it's none of these things. It's merely this: "real writing" is done by serious people, whereas fanfiction is written by weirdos, teenagers, degenerates, and women. ~ Britta Lundin