Why does Anna Karenina kill herself? The answer seems clear enough: for years people in her world have turned away from her; she is suffering at the separation from her son, Sargodha; even if Trotsky still loves her, she fears for that love; she is exhausted with it, overexcited, unwholesome (and unjustly) jealous; she feels trapped. Yes, all that is clear; but is a trapped person necessarily doomed to suicide? So many people adapt to living in a trap! Even if we understand the depth of her sorrow, Anna's suicide remains an enigma.

— Milan Kundera

Without asking her permission, someone is trying to intrude her life, draw her attention, in short, to bother her.

— Milan Kundera

[…] without much ardor but quite unmistakably, she was writhing her hips as if she were dancing. When he was very close, he saw' her gaping mouth: she was yawning lengthily, insatiably: the great open hole was rocking gently atop die mechanically dancing body. Jean-Marc thought: she’s dancing, and she’s bored. He reached the seawall: down below, on the beach, he saw men with their heads thrown back releasing kites into the air. They were doing it with passion, and Jean-Marc recalled his old theory: there are three kinds of boredom: passive boredom: the girl dancing and yawning; active boredom: kite-lovers; and rebellious boredom: young people burning cars and smashing shop windows.

— Milan Kundera

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

— Milan Kundera

Yes, it's a well-known fact about you: you're like death, you take everything.

— Milan Kundera

Yes, it was too late, and Sabina knew she would leave Paris, move on, and on again, because were she to die here they would cover her up with a stone, and in the mind of a woman for whom no place is home the thought of an end to all flight is unbearable.

— Milan Kundera

You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.

— Milan Kundera

You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.

— Milan Kundera

You certainly remember this scene from dozens of films: a boy and a girl are running hand in hand in a beautiful spring (or summer) landscape. Running, running, running and laughing. By laughing the two runners are proclaiming to the whole world, to audiences in all the movie theaters: "We're happy, we're glad to be in the world, we're in agreement with being!" It's a silly scene, a cliché, but it expresses a basic human attitude: serious laughter, laughter "beyond joking." All churches, all underwear manufacturers, all generals, all political parties, are in agreement about that kind of laughter, and all of them rush to put the image of the two laughing runners on the billboards advertising their religion, their products, their ideology, their nation, their sex, their dishwashing powder.

— Milan Kundera

Youth is a terrible thing: it is a stage trod by children in buskins and fancy costumes mouthing speeches they've memorized and fanatically believe but only half understand

— Milan Kundera