And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a love the way we reread a book or resee a film.
Interpretation
The past is fixed and cannot be re-experienced in the same way we can revisit a book or film.
In this quote, Milan Kundera reflects on the nature of memory and love, suggesting that while we can revisit stories and art at any moment, our experiences and feelings from the past are immutable and cannot be felt again in the same way. The 'horror' he refers to lies in the realization that cherished moments and emotions are lost to time and cannot be relived, contrasting the fluidity of art with the permanence of past experiences.
In practice
A reflective speech about the fleeting nature of relationships at a wedding.
Which doesn't mean, of course, that I'd stopped loving her, that I'd forgotten her, or that her image had paled; on the contrary; in the form of a quiet nostalgia she remained constantly within me; I longed for her as one longs for something definitively lost.
Facts mean little compared to attitudes. To contradict rumor or sentiment is as futile as arguing against a believer's faith in the Immaculate Conception. You have simply become a victim of faith, Comrade Assistant.
While people are fairly young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and sharing motifs (the way Tomas and Sabina exchanged the motif of the bowler hat), but if they meet when they are older, like Franz and Sabina, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them.
Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace.
Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses: an individual observes his partner intently, straining to catch every sound.
Science is nothing but perception.
Although a man may have no jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme command over the meaning of existence for him.
Remove Christ from the Scriptures and there is nothing left.
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
What is life but a series of inspired follies.
I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain.
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