“They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are retouched and biographies and histories rewritten.”

— Milan Kundera , book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Part I: Lost Letters (p. 22)
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979)
Context: People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are retouched and biographies and histories rewritten.

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Milan Kundera 198

Czech author of Czech and French literature 1929–2023

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