“Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.”
Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Six: The Grand March, Ch. 29
“Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.”
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Last update June 3, 2021. History
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Milan Kundera198
Czech author of Czech and French literature 1929–2023Related quotes
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Context: Whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch. When I say “totalitarian,” what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously); and the mother who abandons her family or the man who prefers men to women, thereby calling into question the holy decree “Be fruitful and multiply.”
“My tears are only triggered by kitsch.”
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Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) Austrian-American composer
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“You can’t have your kitsch and your good taste, too.”
Ron English (1959) American artist
Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)