Quotes from book
Identity

Identity
Milan KunderaOriginal title L'Identité (French, 1995)

Identity is a novel by Franco-Czech writer Milan Kundera, published in 1998. It is one of his shortest novels.

Milan Kundera photo

“You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Identity (1998), p. 78

Milan Kundera photo

“The eye… the point where a person's identity is concentrated.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Identity (1998), pg 63

Milan Kundera photo

“For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part One: Lightness and Weight
Variant: For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.
Source: Identity

Milan Kundera photo

“Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Pg 82
Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has its own reason, which is not reasonable.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 129
Source: Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“… no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Source: Identity

Milan Kundera photo

“How could she feel nostalgia when he was right in front of her? How can you suffer from the absence of a person who is present?”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 40
Source: Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“She said: "I get scared when my eye blinks. Scared that during that second when my gaze is switched off, a snake or a rat or another man could slip into your place."”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“This is the real and the only reason for friendship: to provide a mirror so the other person can contemplate his image from the past, which, without the eternal blah-blah of memories between pals, would long ago have disappeared.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 10
Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an affliction but learn to enjoy it.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 146
Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“I can't shake off the idea that after death you keep being alive. That to be dead is to live an endless nightmare.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 8
Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“It is always that way: between the moment he meets her again and the moment he recognizes her for the woman he loves, he has some distance to go.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 36
Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“No love can survive muteness.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 82
Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“He felt as if she no longer existed for him, had gone off somewhere, into some other life where, if he should meet her, he would no longer recognize her.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 137
Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“Today we're all alike, all of us bound together by our shared apathy toward work. That very apathy has become a passion. The one great collective passion of our time.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

pg 82
Identity (1998)

Milan Kundera photo

“You can suffer nostalgia in the presence of the beloved if you glimpse a future where the beloved is no more.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Identity (1998), p 40

Milan Kundera photo

“As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom.”

Milan Kundera book Identity

Identity (1998), p 146

Similar authors

Milan Kundera photo
Milan Kundera198
Czech author of Czech and French literature 1929–2023
Václav Klaus photo
Václav Klaus3
2nd President of the Czech Republic None
Karel Čapek photo
Karel Čapek51
Czech writer None
Tomáš Baťa photo
Tomáš Baťa7
Czech businessman None
Václav Havel photo
Václav Havel126
playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of … None
Emil Zátopek photo
Emil Zátopek5
Czech Olympic long-distance runner None
Francois Mauriac photo
Francois Mauriac38
French author None
Romain Rolland photo
Romain Rolland43
French author None
Albert Camus photo
Albert Camus209
French author and journalist None
Karl Kraus photo
Karl Kraus94
Czech playwright and publicist None