Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us.
Milan KunderaThe basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of ego-centrism.
Milan KunderaHe was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the worldโs store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library.
Milan KunderaEven at the age of eight she would fall asleep by pressing one hand into the other and making believe she was holding the hand of the man whom she loved, the man of her life. So if in her sleep she pressed Tomas hand with such tenacity, we can understand why: she had been training since childhood.
Milan Kundera