Hana

“Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise-- the age-old dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another. Andre Breton, too, dreamed of this paradise when he talked about the glass house in which he longed to live. If totalitarianism did not exploit these archetypes, which are deep inside us all and rooted deep in all religions, it could never attract so many people, especially during the early phases of its existence. Once the dream of paradise starts to turn into reality, however, here and there people begin to crop up who stand in its way, and so the rulers of paradise must build a little gulag on the side of Eden. In the course of time this gulag grows ever bigger and more perfect, while the adjoining paradise gets even smaller and poorer.”
― Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

“Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar...”
― William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

“...because love is continual interrogation. I don't know of a better definition of love.”
― Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

“Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Mary