Dilyana

“But there was something more precious than his poems; something far away he didn’t yet possess and longed for—manliness; he knew that it could only be attained by action and courage; and if courage meant courage to be rejected, rejected by everything, by the beloved woman, by the painter, and even by his own poems—so be it: he wanted to have that courage. And so he said:
“Yes, I know that the revolution has no need for my poems. I regret that, because I like them. But unfortunately my regret is no argument against their useless-ness.
Again there was silence, and then one of the men said: “This is dreadful,” and he actually shuddered as if a chill had run down his spine. Jaromil felt the horror his words had produced in everyone there, that they were seeing in him the living disappearance of everything they loved, everything that made life worthwhile.
It was sad but also beautiful: within the space of an instant, Jaromil lost the feeling of being a child.”
― Milan Kundera

“Only the basic situations in life occur only once, never to return. For a man to be a man, he must be fully aware of this never-to-return. (p.148)”
― Milan Kundera, The Joke

“...people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste. Can you tell me what kind of day can follow a beginning of such violence? What happens to people whose alarm clock daily gives them a small electric shock? Each day they become more used to violence and less used to pleasure.”
― Milan Kundera, Farewell Waltz

“The Latin words humus, soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who we are: dust - dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being. If we cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of continuity with it, who knows, we may also acquire humility.”
― Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places