How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph), with the exception of Part V, which runs (Part#. "Short Title". Paragraph). Part V has no numbered chapters—only title headings.
Quote #1
In the political jargon of those days, the word "intellectual" was an insult. It indicated someone who did not understand life and was cut off from the people. All the Communists who were hanged at the time by other Communists were awarded such abuse. (I.3.5)
Kundera makes an observation here that holds true down to the present day: the populace hates the idea of the Ivy League smartypants. In Kundera's Czechoslovakia, the Communists take the anti-intellectual rhetoric to a new level: they are people who don't work, don't know the struggles of the people, and don't know how to use small words to rile up a crowd.
It's a great way to demonize an entire group of people who don't agree with Communists' tactics, and Kundera's character Mirek finds that being associated with the word "intellectual" alone is enough to cut off a person from every relationship in his society.
Quote #2
They have tricked us with a semantic imposture. Their imitation of laughter and (the devil's) original laughter are both called by the same name. Nowadays we don't even realize that the same external display serves two absolutely opposed internal attitudes. There are two laughters, and we have no word to tell one from the other. (III.4.7)
Kundera says that the conceptual problem with laughter (it seems innocent, but it's really diabolical) has deep roots. It's originally an utterance of the devil, but the angels want to mock him through imitation and so take up their own laughter. But the two kinds of laughter are not only indistinguishable in sound, they are also hiding behind the same term ("semantic imposture"). The result? No one can properly tell what the intention behind any given instance of laughter truly is.
Quote #3
The phrase "It's absolutely the same with me, I..." seems to be an approving echo, a way of continuing the other's thought, but that is an illusion: in reality it is a brute revolt against a brutal violence in an effort to free our own ear from bondage and to occupy the enemy's ear by force. (IV.1.5)
We've all had that friend who can't listen to a story without finding something in his or her life story that's exactly the same. On a good day, we understand that our friend is just trying to empathize. On a bad day, it seems like he or she is hogging the spotlight. Kundera's not exactly a sunshiny personality, so he pretty much assumes that this person is using language to "colonize": she wants to force her life story on you.
Quote #4
That conversation with the taxi driver suddenly made clear to me the essence of the writer's occupation. We write books because our children aren't interested in us. We address ourselves to an anonymous world because our wives plug their ears when we speak to them. (IV.9.8)
This conversation helps Kundera understand that words sometimes become barriers to relationships and communication, rather than facilitators. The desire to speak or write one's own story blots out the possibility of listening to others: if we're constantly screaming about our own experiences, we can't possibly hear what's going on around us. And Kundera came up with this theory before the existence of Twitter, Facebook, or blogging.
Quote #5
For everyone is pained by the thought of disappearing, unheard and unseen, into an indifferent universe, and because of that everyone wants, while there is still time, to turn himself into a universe of words. (IV.18.11)
This is Kundera's explanation for the epidemic of graphomania: we all fear death, and we all have the desire to tell our stories before we are silenced forever. But the trade-off is huge. In order to write, we have to isolate ourselves from others—which seems like a pretty bonehead move when you want people to remember you and your life story.
Quote #6
Lermontov said the word "subtle" as if it were in italics. Yes, there are words unlike all others, those words whose particular meaning is known only to initiates. (V. "Lermontov's Side". 4)
We all understand the phenomenon of talking IN ALL CAPS. Well, this is another version. Kundera knows that even the spoken word can carry special emphasis, and he expresses it here through italics. Lermontov is trying to find a way to differentiate himself from the gaggle of great poets in the bar at the Writers Club, to show that he is another kind of sublime. The student isn't really buying it, but he empathizes with Lermontov's isolation and admires his stance on what it means to be a poet.
Quote #7
He said "That's strange," and his eyes showed the immense astonishment of knowing everything and being able to say nothing. Things had lost their names and were merged into single, undifferentiated being. I was the only one who by talking to him could momentarily retrieve from that wordless infinitude the world of entities with names. (VI.3.3)
In his last illness, Kundera's father loses the ability to speak, even though his mind appears to be active and yearning to communicate. It makes Kundera miserable to think that he lost the opportunity to speak with his father in the years before the old man began to lose his words.
Quote #8
He had never quite known how to understand that silence. Maybe it was because, lovemaking aside, Edwige was always more enterprising than he. Even though she was younger, she had already uttered at least three times as many words and dispensed ten times as much instruction and advice. (VII.1.3)
Jan is speaking here of the total silence that accompanies his lovemaking with Edwige. He feels like they should at least be talking dirty to each other, but neither of them can seem to think of anything to say. He feels like he should be worried about this. In the end, it turns out that Edwige is just a practical person—what do they need to talk about during sex? It's an alienating outlook for Jan.
Quote #9
They were words difficult to pass over in silence, but it was not possible to respond to them either. They did not deserve approval, not being progressive, but neither did they deserve argument, because they were not obviously against progress. They were the worst words possible, because they were situated outside the debate conducted by the spirit of the time. They were words beyond good and evil, perfectly incongruous words. (VII.4.16)
Jan has just walked in on the Clevis family in the middle of a spirited debate: should women still be allowed to sunbathe topless on public beaches? They all agree that tops are evil, but the young daughter has just vented about how women are not sex objects meant for men's pleasure. Her parents are pretty astonished by her precocious language, and her dad tells her that it's pretty easy not to be a sex object.
Kundera assesses this comment from the viewpoint of ideologies: the language Papa Clevis uses doesn't belong to one camp or the other. Papa Clevis' ideas are challenging and inconvenient because of this—and no one has a good response.
Quote #10
They never understood each other, Edwige and he, yet they always agreed. Each interpreted the other's words in his or her own way, and there was wonderful harmony between them. Wonderful solidarity based on lack of understanding. (VII.14.13)
Jan calls out to Daphnis while he and Edwige are strolling down a nude beach together. He has something very specific in mind when he does it—a desire to go back to a place in time when sexual arousal (not fulfillment) was the be all and end all of happy experience. Edwige thinks Jan has the urge to bring humanity back to a more innocent and ideal time and runs away with the idea; she thinks he's brilliant for suggesting it. And so their relationship continues to be based on fortunate miscommunication.