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Quotes by Czechoslovakian Authors
"So I left with Jean Claude and went to Paris, so when the Russians came to Prague, I was in Paris."
"We must have the time to create strict rules so that property is not sold by Communist managers for a low price. They often get payments under the table to sell to the first bidder. This does not build public support for a market economy."
"For us she is not the iron lady. She is the kind, dear Mrs. Thatcher."
"The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought."
"I was coming back from Tel Aviv recently, and we had forty minutes of bumps. I got so scared I grabbed a paper and pen and put them in my pocket, just in case we crashed and I needed to write a letter from wherever we landed."
"If you go to school and practice for five days a week, it still gives you two days you can go and see your friends, you can go to the movies, you do whatever you like to do."
"It is possible to spend one's entire lifetime without ever experiencing the mystical realms or even without being aware of their existence."
"I was very much fascinated with the technology we had that we could edit in the computer our compositions, but all the sounds that were available on the market were crap."
"If consciousness can function independently of the body during one's lifetime, it could be able to do the same after death."
"Relativism is not indifference; on the contrary, passionate indifference is necessary in order for you not to hear the voices that oppose your absolute decrees."
"Man will never be enslaved by machinery if the man tending the machine be paid enough."
"In any case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than to understand, to answer rather than to ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties."
"Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures."
"I have good anticipation, and good reaction to the the ball because I've played so many matches in my life."
"He is still my father. He is still a person I know I could trust and he would never do anything against me. Once you're at the top, there are not many people like that. People always want something from you."
"We will never remember anything by sitting in one place waiting for the memories to come back to us of their own accord! Memories are scattered all over the world. We must travel if we want to find them and flush them from their hiding places!"
"Why does Anna Karenina kill herself? the answer seems clear enough: for years people in her world have turned away from her; she is suffering at the separation from her son, Seryozha; even if Vronsky still loves her, she fears for that love; she is exhausted with it, overexcited, unwholesomely (and unjustly) jealous; she feels trapped. Yes, all that is clear; but is a trapped person necessarily doomed to suicide? So many people adapt to living in a trap! Even if we understand the depth of her sorrow, Anna's suicide remains an enigma."
"I am touring in Europe. I am putting together a trio and a quartet. I am playing solo concerts with my symphonic sounds. I am very much engaged back to playing and recording and everything."
"Mother Nature made me the way I am, and I should be happy."
"Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed."
"The study of consciousness that can extend beyond the body is extremely important for the issue of survival, since it is this part of human personality that would be likely to survive death."
"No one cares about the artist Kafka, who troubles us with his puzzling aesthetic, because we'd rather have Kafka as the fusion of experience and work, the Kafka who had a difficult relationship with his father and didn't know how to deal with women."
"As she uttered the words of the prayer, she glanced up at him as if he were God Himself. He watched her with growing pleasure. In front of him was kneeling the directress, being humiliated by a subordinate; in front of him a naked revolutionary was being humiliated by prayer; in front of him a praying lady was being humiliated by her nakedness.This threefold image of degradation intoxicated him and something unexpected suddenly happened: his body revoked its passive resistance. Edward was excited!As the directress said, 'And lead us not into temptation,' he quickly threw off all his clothes. When she said, 'Amen,' he violently lifted her off the floor and dragged her onto the couch."
"You can't be a model at age 60, but you certainly can be an actress."
"Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud."
"That's one of the reasons I moved to Florida. Of course, the main reason is the weather and the training. But there's more jealousy in Switzerland because it's so little and they don't have so many athletes."
"Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all."
"Because beauty isn't enough, there must be something more."
"After Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor, the war tide slowly turned against the Axis."
"I've lived for 10 years in Switzerland, so I speak German."
"What does it mean to live in truth? Putting it negatively is easy enough: it means not lying, not hiding, and not dissimulating."
"Isn't that exactly the definition of biography? An artificial logic imposed on an 'incoherent succession of images'?"
"A style is not a matter of camera angles or fancy footwork, it's an expression, an accurate expression of your particular opinion."
"Individuals approaching death often experience encounters with their dead relatives, who seem to welcome them to the next world. These deathbed visions are authentic and convincing; they are often followed by a state of euphoria and seem to ease the transition."
"My acting coach makes the impossible accessible."
"I was fortunate enough to visit a lot of beautiful places around the world. The most astonishing and memorable experiences were my trips to Africa and Australia."
"I make money because I have to pay for everything apart from my school fees. My mother even makes me pay my own telephone bill."
"I was paid to read Western economic texts. In a way, the regime paid for their own undermining."
"It was a great thing to be a human being. It was something tremendous. Suddenly I'm conscious of a million sensations buzzing in me like bees in a hive. Gentlemen, it was a great thing."
"So I am one of those bass players who can do something and musically, it was back then and now it is even more, if you noticed on the new album, I am not playing all the time anymore."
"They taught us because they wanted to pass the knowledge on and educate young musicians. It was not because they had to teach because they failed as musicians. There is a huge difference in the reasons why someone is teaching and what they can offer and what they cannot offer."
"You know, 20 years... the films of television when it started, the literature, radio in communist countries, they're clean as a whistle; there was no violence, no sex, no drugs, nothing."
"There's a great danger in making this seem more important than it is, this whole Free Cinema thing."
"Actually, I don't really like being confused with my image."
"Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything."
"I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect."
"We are very isolated, far from boyfriends and friends, so we have to be strong, smart and very professional."
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