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5788b02
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Love begins with a metaphor. Love begins at a point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.
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Milan Kundera |
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3cd3475
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The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest if 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.
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Milan Kundera |
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e0c63a7
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Orwell's 1984 [...] is political thought disguised as a novel; the thinking is certainly lucid and correct, but it is distorted by its guise as a novel, which renders it imprecise and vague. [...] the situations and the characters are as flat as a poster. The pernicious influence of Orwell's novel resides in its implacable reduction of a reality to its political dimension alone, and in its reduction of that dimension to what is exemplarily..
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totalitarism
propaganda
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Milan Kundera |
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5dca389
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What is unbearable in life is not being, but being one's self. To live, there is no happiness there. Living: carrying around the world one's painful self. But being, being is happiness. Being: to transform into a fountain, a stone basin in which the universe descends like a lukewarm rain - Postface by Francois Ricard, translated from French
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Milan Kundera |
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8bcee8b
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It seemed to me an error in reasoning for a man to isolate a woman he loves from all the circumstances in which he met her and in which she lives, to try, with dogged inner concentration, to purify her of everything that is not her self, which is to say also of the story that they lived through together and that gives their love its shape.
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Milan Kundera |
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cd09b69
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It was only an idea, a sudden flash, but it kept coming back to me, and I couldn't help thinking, why am I alive, what good is there in going on, but it's not true really, I didn't think anything of the sort, I was hardly thinking at all, I just imagined myself no longer alive and suddenly I felt such bliss, such strange bliss that I wanted to laugh and maybe really did begin to laugh.
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Milan Kundera |
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1962625
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The gigantic invisible broom that transforms, disfigures, erases landscapes has been at the job for millennia now, but its movements, which used to be slow, just barely perceptible, have sped up so much that I wonder: Would an Odyssey even be conceivable today? Is the epic of the return still pertinent to our time?
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Milan Kundera |
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871307b
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And do you know the story about Haydn's head? They cut it away from the still-warm cadaver so some insane scientist could take apart the brain and pinpoint the location of musical genius. And the Einstein Story? He'd carefully written his will with instructions to cremate him. They followed his orders, but his disciple, ever loyal and devoted, refused to live without the master's gaze on him. Before the cremation, he took the eyes of the ca..
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privacy
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Milan Kundera |
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3127ca8
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The episode of Banaka pointing to his chest and crying out of existential anguish reminds me of a line from Goethe's West-East Divan: "Is one man alive when others are alive?" Deep within Goethe's query lies the secret of the writer's creed. By writing books, the individual becomes a universe (we speak of the universe of Balzac, the universe of Chekhov, the universe of Kafka, do we not?). And since the principal quality of a universe is its..
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Milan Kundera |
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dd2164a
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Her kitsch was the image of home, all peace, quiet, and harmony, and ruled by a loving mother and a wise father. It was an image that took shape in her after the death of her parents. The less her life resembled the sweetest of dreams, the more sensitive she was to its magic, and more than once she shed tears when the ungrateful daughter in a sentimental film embraced the neglected father as the windows of the happy family's house shone out..
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Milan Kundera |
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2b72eee
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That idea would be embarrassing because there is something excessive about it, it would take to much energy to defend (while the best possible progressive idea, so to speak, defends itself)...
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Milan Kundera |
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6fc7fab
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The man of fantasy must become the man of action, the adventure of dreams the adventure of life.
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Milan Kundera |
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b06b2cd
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A person finds it distasteful to hear his life recounted with a different interpretation from his own.
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Milan Kundera |
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f51e913
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Encouraged by her parents' applause, the girl went on: "Do you think we take off our tops to give you pleasure? We do it for ourselves, because we like it, because it feels better, because it brings our bodies nearer to the sun! You're only capable of seeing us as sex objects!" Again Papa and Mama Clevis applauded, but this time their bravos had a somewhat different tone. Their daughter's words were indeed right, but also somewhat inappropr..
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progressivism
objectification
sexuality
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Milan Kundera |
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1920e08
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How could someone who had so little respect for people be so dependent on what they thought of him?
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Milan Kundera |
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f6ea485
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The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border that I myself have cirumvented. It is that crossed border (the border beyond which my own "I" ends) which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about. The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the tra..
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Milan Kundera |
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0b32902
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I am obedient. I can never say no to those weaker than myself. And because I am six feet two and can lift a two-hundred-pound sack with one hand, in all my life I have yet to find anyone I can resist.
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Milan Kundera |
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b786ae5
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In modern times an idea can be refuted, yes, but not retracted
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Milan Kundera |
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3c4713e
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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
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Milan Kundera |
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48802a5
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he could not quite understand what had happened. he began to sense an aura of hitherto unknown happiness emanating from them
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Milan Kundera |
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dd01342
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He knew very well that his memory detested him, that it did nothing but slander him; therefore he tried not to believe it and to be more lenient toward his own life. But that didn't help: he took no pleasure in looking back, and he did it as seldom as possible.
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memory
nostalgia
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Milan Kundera |
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00e4422
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The crematory fire is the only way our bodies can escape them. It's the absolute death.
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Milan Kundera |
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f0705b8
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all languages that derive from Latin form the word "compassion" by combining the prefix meaning "with" (com-) and the root meaning "suffering"
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Milan Kundera |
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a3b057a
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he realized that the path of love, which Bertlef had suggested, was closed to him; it was the path of saints, not of ordinary men.
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Milan Kundera |
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1805996
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She knew only too well that the song was a beautiful lie. As soon as kitsch is recognized for the lie it is, it moves into the context of non-kitsch, thus losing its authoritarian power and becoming as touching as any other human weakness. For none among us is superman enough to escape kitsch completely. No matter how we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition.
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human
beauty
authoritarian
kitsch
human-condition
reveal
weakness
lie
power
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Milan Kundera |
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5a383c8
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m 't`s Hy@ lmr Hyn l ystTy` 'n y'khdh shyy'an `l~ mHml ljd , w l Ht~ 'Hdan ! .
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Milan Kundera |
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fa3e68b
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Jaromil had always regarded the future as an awesome mystery. It comprised everything unknown, and for that reason it lured and terrified. It was the opposite of certainty, the opposite of home.
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Milan Kundera |
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d713e2c
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When we study, discuss, analyze a reality, we analyze it as it appears in our mind, in our memory. We know reality only in the past tense. We do not know it as it is in the present, in the moment when it's happening, when it is. The present moment is unlike the memory of it. Remembering is not the negative of forgetting. Remembering is a form of forgetting. [...] We die without knowing what we have lived.
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present
time
memory
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Milan Kundera |
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004e4e6
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Tereza keeps appearing before my eyes. I see her sitting on the stump petting Karenin's head and ruminating on mankind's debacles. Another image also comes to mind: Nietzsche leaving his hotel in Turin. Seeing a horse and a coachman beating it with a whip, Nietzsche went up to the horse and, before the coachman's very eyes, put his arms around the horse's neck and burst into tears. That took place in 1889, when Nietzsche, too, had removed h..
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dogs-and-humans
existentialism
nietzsche
descartes
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Milan Kundera |
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b095dde
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lm ybtl` ltrykh 'fkrh w `wTfh fqT, bl btl` zmn Hyth w yq`h, nh lrjl ldhy lthmh ltrykh, nh lys 'kthr mn Hshw bshry lltrykh. w qd knt llrwy'y jr'@ ltqT hdh lhwl
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Milan Kundera |
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d30d83c
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ankhs khh `shq dygry myshwd byd pyshpysh - hmchw srbzy khh tslym myshwd - slHhy khwd r bh dwr ndzd w drHlykhh khwd r bydf` mybynd, dr ntZr khwrdn Drbh bshd.
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Milan Kundera |
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71c30ec
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chgwnh mytwn bh lHZhy khh drd byhwdh myshwd, py brd? chgwnh myshwd an lHZhy khh zndgy dygr rzsh ndrd, tshkhyS dd?
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Milan Kundera |
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ee3951b
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Cada possibilidade nova que tem a existencia, ate a menos provavel, transforma a existencia inteira.
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Milan Kundera |
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2712e0a
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Si las personas solo fueran responsables de lo que hacen conscientemente, los idiotas estarian de antemano libres de cualquier culpa
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Milan Kundera |
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4e8533f
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Znaete li, az mislia, che zhivot't triabva da se priema tak'v, kak'vto e. (...) Vsichko e v bozhiite r'tse i nie ne znaem nishcho za utreshniia den, s koeto iskam da kazha, che da priemash zhivota tak'v, kak'vto e, oznachava da priemesh nepredskazuemoto. A deteto e negov s'biratelen obraz. Deteto e samata nepredskazuemost. Ne znaesh kakvo shche izleze ot nego, kakvo shche ti donese i tochno zatova triabva da go priemesh. V protiven sluchai ..
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непредсказуемост
живот
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Milan Kundera |
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7d4ecca
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Samo sluchainostta mozhe da se t'lkuva kato poslanie. Onova, koeto stava po neobkhodimost, koeto e ochakvano, koeto se povtaria vseki den, e niamo. Samo sluchainostta otpravia glas k'm nas. Nie se opitvame da ia razchitame, kakto tsigankite razchitat figurite v kafeenata utaika po d'noto na chashata.
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Milan Kundera |
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fe51882
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Onova, koeto otlichava obrazovaniia chovek ot samoukiia, ne e kolichestvoto znanie, a razlichnata stepen na vitalnost i samochuvstvie.
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Milan Kundera |
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b61b30b
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he tried to remind himself , don't think about her! don't think about her! he said to himself, i am sick with compassion
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Milan Kundera |
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bcf009f
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Pravda, u stvari, i ne treba da nas previse zanima. Pravda nije ljudska stvar. Postoji pravda slijepih i krutih zakona, a osim nje mozda i neka visa pravda, ali tu ja ne razumijem. Uvijek mi se cinilo da na ovom svijetu zivim izvan pravde. Pravda me se ne tice. Pravda je nesto izvan mene i iznad mene. Kako god se uzme, nesto neljudsko. Nikad necu suradivati s tom odvratnom silom.
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Milan Kundera |
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70c41f7
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Chovek niama kak da znae kakvo bi triabvalo da iska, zashchoto zhivee edin-edinstven zhivot i ne mozhe da go sravniava s predishnite si zhivoti, nito p'k da go popravi v sledvashchite.
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Milan Kundera |
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a89e92d
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lHy@ 'qw~ mn lmwt, l'n lHy@ ttGdh~ `l~ lmwt!
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Milan Kundera |
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fe46651
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Es que hasta la alegria que produce la presencia del hombre a quien se ama se siente mejor a solas. Si la presencia fuera de el continua, solo estaria presente en su constante transcurrir. Detenerla solo es posible en los ratos de soledad
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solitude
love
soledad
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Milan Kundera |
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fa31ac9
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hw'l ldhyn y`tqdwn 'n l'nZm@ lshyw`y@ fy 'wrwb lshrqy@ hy fqT mn Sn` mjrmyn, fnhm yGflwn Hqyq@ 'ssy@: l'nZm@ lmjrm@ lm yunshy'h 'ns mjrmwn wnm 'ns mtHmswn wmuqtn`wn b'nhm wjdw lTryq lwHyd ldhy yw'dy l~ ljn@. f'khdhw ydf`wn bbsl@ `n hdh lTryq, wmn 'jl hdh qmw b`dm lkthyryn. thm, fym b`d, 'SbH jly wwDH 'kthr mn lnhr, 'n ljn@ lyst mwjwd@ w'n lmtHmsyn knw dh mjrd sfHyn.
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Milan Kundera |
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d6c7e84
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Plus vaste est le temps que nous avons laisse derriere nous, plus irresistible est la voix qui nous invite au retour
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Milan Kundera |