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e24d1a1
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lqt lHb hy mthl lmbrTwryt, m n ykhtfy lmbd' ldhy bunyt `l~ ssh Ht~ tkhtfy m`h yDan
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Milan Kundera |
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d4841c1
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Graphomania (a mania for writing books) inevitably takes on epidemic proportions when a society develops to the point of creating three basic conditions: - (1) an elevated level of general well being which allows people to devote themselves to useless activities (2) a high degree of social atomization and , as a consequence, a general isolation of individuals; (3) the absence of dramatic social changes in the nation's internal life.
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writing-books
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Milan Kundera |
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973673f
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As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about. But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself? Staring impotently across a courtyard, at a loss for what to do; hearing the pertinacious rumbling of one's own sto..
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Milan Kundera |
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bdc32d7
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It follows, then, that the aesthetic ideal of the categorical agreement with being is a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist. This aesthetic ideal is called kitsch.
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Milan Kundera |
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30c5104
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The sound of laughter is like the vaulted dome of a temple of happiness, "that delectable trance of happiness, that ultimate peak of delight. Laughter of delight, delight of laughter." There is no doubt: this laughter goes "far beyond joking, jeering, and ridicule." The two sisters stretched out on their bed are not laughing at anything concrete, their laughter has no object; it is an expression of being rejoicing at being... and in this ec..
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Milan Kundera |
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eb37000
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prssh bhmyt r fqT ykh khwdkh mytwnd TrH khnd. drwq` hmyshh sdhtryn prsshh bhmyttryn prsshhst w pskhy bry anh wjwd ndrd. prsshhyy khh nmytwn bh anh pskh dd, drst hmn chyzy st khh mHdwdythy mkhnt bshr r nshn mydhd w mrzhy hsty m r t`yyn mykhnd.
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Milan Kundera |
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ef9ee23
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There was pleasure in Paradise but no excitement. pg 246
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Milan Kundera |
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8cd88fc
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The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. To express that fundamental notion most Europeans can utilize a word derived from the Greek (nostalgia, nostalgie) as well as other words with roots in their national languages: anoranza, say the Spaniards; saudade, say the Portuguese. In each language these words have a different semantic nuance. Often t..
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Milan Kundera |
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d72b611
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As she uttered the words of the prayer, she glanced up at him as if he were God Himself. He watched her with growing pleasure. In front of him was kneeling the directress, being humiliated by a subordinate; in front of him a naked revolutionary was being humiliated by prayer; in front of him a praying lady was being humiliated by her nakedness. This threefold image of degradation intoxicated him and something unexpected suddenly happened: h..
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sex
degradation
humiliation
lust
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Milan Kundera |
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9d6ffa4
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Leroy interrupted Chantal's fantasies: "Freedom? As you live our your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom. You're free to melt your own individuality into the cauldron of the multitude either with a feeling of defeat or euphoria."
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Milan Kundera |
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fd6e740
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hl blmkn dn@ mhw zy'l? n Gywm lmGyb lbrtqly@ tDfy `l~ kl shy 'lq lHnyn, Ht~ `l~ lmqSl@.
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Milan Kundera |
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cce03fc
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life is like weeds
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Milan Kundera |
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23a4c2e
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You are beautiful," he said, "But I will have to leave you."
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Milan Kundera |
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c341210
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Tenderness is the attempt to create a tiny artificial space in which it is mutually agreed that each will treat the other like a child.
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Milan Kundera |
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e4c3617
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Facts mean little compared to attitudes. To contradict rumor or sentiment is as futile as arguing against a believer's faith in the Immaculate Conception. You have simply become a victim of faith, Comrade Assistant.
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Milan Kundera |
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f08ff2e
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Pick me up," is the message of a person who keeps falling. Tomas kept picking her up, patiently."
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Milan Kundera |
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d8c399f
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Children, you are the future,' he said, and today I realize he did not mean it the way it sounded. The reason children are the future is not that they will one day be grownups. No, the reason is that mankind is moving more and more in the direction of infancy, and childhood is the image of the future.
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Milan Kundera |
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9d1972d
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It means what you are, wanting what you want and going after it without a sens od shame. People are slaves to rules.
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Milan Kundera |
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7aaca85
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In Spanish anoranza comes from the verb anorar (to feel nostalgia), which comes from the Catalan enyorar, itself derived from the Latin word ignorare (to be unaware of, not know, not experience; to lack or miss), In that etymological light nostalgia seems something like the pain of ignorance, of not knowing. You are far away, and I don't know what has become of you. My country is far away, and I don't know what is happening there
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Milan Kundera |
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f75db76
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Our historical experience teaches us that men imitate one another, that their attitudes are statistically calculable, their opinions manipulable, and that man is therefore less an individual (a subject) than an element in a mass.
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man
opinions
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Milan Kundera |
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944d07e
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Now, perhaps, we are in a better position to understand the abyss separating Sabina and Franz: he listened eagerly to the story of her life and she was equally eager to hear the story of his, but although they had a clear understanding of the logical meaning of the words they exchanged, they failed to hear the semantic susurrus of the river flowing through them.
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Milan Kundera |
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b0a4dd5
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lqd t'Sl ldy `dm ltSdyq , l~ Hd 'nh Hyn yfDy lyW mrw' bm yHb 'w l yHb , lm 'kn 'Hml kl hdh `l~ mHml ljd 'w lm 'kn , bSwr@ 'kthr dq@ , 'r~ fyh sw~ mjrd shhd@ `l~ lSwr@ lty yryd `Th `n nfsh !.
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Milan Kundera |
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b7fa002
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'n tsh`r bldhnb 'w tush`ara bh. '`tqd 'n kl shy' ykmn hn. flHy@ h~ Sr` ljmy` Dd ljmy`. hdh m`rwf, lkn kyf ytjl~ hdh lSr` f~ mjtm` mtmdn l~ hdh lHd ? l ymkn llns 'n yhjmw b`Dhm b`Dan `ndm yltqwn. yHwlwn bdlan mn dhlk 'n ylqw `l~ lakhryn `r lsh`wr bldhnb. wsyfwz mn ynjH f~ j`l lakhr mdhnban. wsykhsr mn y`trf bkhTy'h.
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Milan Kundera |
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8da1cc7
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In that etymological light nostalgia seems something like the pain of ignorance, of not knowing. You are far away, and I don't know what has become of you. My country is far away, and I don't know what is happening there.
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Milan Kundera |
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52ab9cd
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lSmt yjdhb lntbh. wqd ykwn mthyran. yj`lk GmDan 'w mshbwhan.
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Milan Kundera |
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377ffe9
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This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted.
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Milan Kundera |
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6a16ef3
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wqd nth~ bh lmTf l~ lTmy'nn l~ 'n fkr@ lHb ldh~ yHl fj'@ klS`q@ yHrr lmr'@ df`@ wHd@ mn kl kbH wHshm@, wbm 'nWh `fyf@ wbryy'@, f'nh tsr` l~ mnH nfsh ll`shyq mthlm tf`l '~ ft@ d`r@, bl 'kthr mn dhlk, flHb HrWr bdkhlh ynbw` lhm `l~ drj@ mn lqw@ bHyth 'n slwkh l`fw~ ymkn 'n yshbh slwk mr'@ dht b` Twyl f~ lfjwr .. f`bqry@ lHb qd t`wWD lkhbr@ f~ rmsh@ `yn ..
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Milan Kundera |
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48814d2
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Love is poetry, poetry is love
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Milan Kundera |
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98ac2f3
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Fortunately, I read (the books) without knowing what I was in for, and the best thing that can ever happen to a reader happened to me: I loved something that, by conviction (or by my nature) I should not have loved
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reading
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Milan Kundera |
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accf3b7
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Even in the game there lurks a lack of freedom; even in a game is a trap for the players.
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Milan Kundera |
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93a0da1
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It was a curious game. This curiousness was evidenced, for example, in the fact that the young man, even though he himself was playing the unknown driver remarkably well, did not for a moment stop seeing his girl in the hitchhiker. And it was precisely this that was tormenting. He saw his girl seducing a strange man, and had the bitter privilege of being present, of seeing at close quarters how she looked and of hearing what she said when s..
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Milan Kundera |
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ad888a6
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If in the past people would listen to music out of love for music, nowadays it roars everywhere and all the time, "regardless whether we want to hear it", it roars from loudspeakers, in cars, in restaurants, in elevators, in the streets, in waiting rooms, in gyms, in the earpieces of Walkmans, music rewritten, reorchestrated, abridged, and stretched out, fragments of rock, of jazz, of opera, a flood of everything jumbled together so that we..
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Milan Kundera |
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66a63dd
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Tereza had gone back to sleep; he could not. He pictured her death. She was dead and having terrible nightmares; but because she was dead, he was unable to wake her from them. Yes, that is death: Tereza asleep, having terrible nightmares, and he unable to wake her.
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Milan Kundera |
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c67ff89
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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.
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Milan Kundera |
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bdb38c5
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Today history is no more than a thin thread of the remembered stretching over an ocean of the forgotten, but time moves on, and an epoch of millennia will come which the inextensible memory of the individual will be unable to encompass; whole centuries and millennia will therefore fall away, centuries of paintings and music, centuries of discoveries, of battles, of books, and this will be dire, because man will lose the notion of his self, ..
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Milan Kundera |
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17c2cb5
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Seeing is limited by two borders: Strong light, which blinds, and total darkness.
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Milan Kundera |
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3f05af9
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Tomas came to this conclusion: 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).
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Milan Kundera |
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791e5f0
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Who was the real me? I can only repeat: I was a man of many faces. At meetings I was earnest, enthusiastic, and committed; among friends, unconstrained and given to teasing; with Marketa, cynical and fitfully witty; and alone (and thinking of Marketa), unsure of myself and as agitated as a schoolboy. Was the last face the real one? No. They were all real: I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces ..
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youth
identity
man-of-many-faces
czech
masks
self
novel
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Milan Kundera |
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b288ae7
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He took her in his arms and lifted her up. She looked at him and he noticed only now that her eyes were full of tears. He pressed her to him. She understood that he loved her and this suddenly filled her with sadness. She felt sad that he loved her so much, and she felt like crying.
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milan-kundera
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Milan Kundera |
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6a08267
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And it isn't enough for us to identify with our selves, it is necessary to do so passionately, to the point of life and death. Because only in this way can we regard ourselves not merely as a variant of a human prototype but as a being with its own irreplaceable essence.
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Milan Kundera |
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c4840a5
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The eye: the window to the soul; the center of the face's beauty; the point where a person's identity is concentrated; but at the same time an optical instrument that requires constant washing, wetting, maintenance by a special liquid dosed with salt. So the gaze, the greatest marvel man possesses, is regularly interrupted by a mechanical washing action.
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Milan Kundera |
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ec4fb1f
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Because misogynists are the best of men." All the poets reacted to these words with hooting. Boccaccio was forced to raise his voice: "Please understand me. Misogynists don't despise women. Misogynists don't like femininity. Men have always been divided into two categories. Worshipers of women, otherwise known as poets, and misogynists, or, more accurately, gynophobes. Worshipers or poets revere traditional feminine values such as feelings,..
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women
misogynist
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Milan Kundera |
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daa5c00
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To put it another way, every love relationship is based upon unwritten conventions rashly agreed upon by the lovers during the first weeks of their love. On the one hand, they are living a sort of dream; on the other, without realizing it, they are drawing up the fine print of their contracts like the most hard-nosed of lawyers. O lovers! Be wary during those perilous first days! If you serve the other party breakfast in bed, you will be ob..
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Milan Kundera |
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4630cfb
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V tozi sviat vsichko e predvaritelno prosteno, sledovatelno - tsinichno pozvoleno.
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Milan Kundera |