12 Milan Kundera Quotes on Relationships

Milan Kundera quotes on relationships

6. Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another.

15. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.

27. For the first few seconds, she was afraid he would throw her out because of the crude noises she was making, but then he put his arms around her. She was grateful to him for ignoring her rumbles, and she kissed him passionately, her eyes misting.

33. 'Why don't you ever use your strength on me?' she said. 'Because love means renouncing strength,' said Franz softly.-

34. 'Love is a battle,' said Marie-Claude, still smiling. 'And I plan to go on fighting. To the end.'

35. The moment love is born: the woman cannot resist the voice calling forth her terrified soul; the man cannot resist the woman whose soul thus responds to his voice.

42. This is the real and the only reason for friendship: to provide a mirror so the other person can contemplate his image from the past, which, without the eternal blah-blah of memories between pals, would long ago have disappeared.

43. It is always that way: between the moment he meets her again and the moment he recognizes her for the woman he loves, he has some distance to go.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

44. How could she feel nostalgia when he was right in front of her? How can you suffer from the absence of a person who is present?

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

49. Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together.

50. No love can survive muteness.