“All novels… are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?”

Source: The Art of the Novel

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Milan Kundera 198
Czech author of Czech and French literature 1929–2023

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“We are ready to sacrifice our true, transitory self for the imaginary eternal self we are building”

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Context: Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our mighty deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or "of those that are to be." We are ready to sacrifice our true, transitory self for the imaginary eternal self we are building up, by our heroic deeds, in the opinion and imagination of others.

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