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
The constitution did indeed guarantee freedom of speech, but the laws punished anything that could be considered an attack on State security. One never knew when the state would start screaming that this word or that was an attempt on its security. (I.2.4)
In Mirek's world (and Kundera's), language is a dicey subject. Whether spoken or written—in Mirek's case, it's mostly the written word that plagues him—opinions can run up against the regime at any time. Note how easily the government takes away the freedom of speech without actually have to revoke it: it's a right in theory now, rather than in practice.
Quote #2
The opponents had no great dream, only some tiresome and threadbare moral principles, with which they tried to patch the torn trousers of the established order. (I.5.4)
Kundera explains why and how the Communist Party was able to take control in his country. It's really quite simple: the party's opponents didn't have vision. No good sound bites. No shining ideals to bolster popularity. There was, however, a lot of disgust with the status quo and not much of an argument for keeping things as is.
Quote #3
And then those young, intelligent, and radical people suddenly had the strange feeling of having sent out into the world an act that had begun to lead a life of its own, had ceased to resemble the idea it was based on, and did not care about those who had created it. (I.5.7)
Once those intellectuals who had supported the Communist Party to the best of their abilities started to see their freedoms vanishing, they began to rethink their ideals. Sometimes, we just have to be extra careful what we wish for. We might get it, with a vengeance—and a side of secret police.
Quote #4
That is the period commonly referred to as the "Prague Spring": the guardians of the idyll saw themselves forced to remove microphones from private apartments, the borders were opened, and the notes were escaping from the enormous Bach score for everyone to sing in his own way. (I.10.2)
After some years of Communist rule, the people of Bohemia rise up and try to reassert their rights to things like freedom of speech. They had some success, but it was really pretty short-lived. By August of that year (1968), Russian tanks had arrived in Bohemia to crush this movement. Side note: Kundera got into a written debate with Vaclav Havel over whether or not the gains of the Prague Spring had disappeared completely by the autumn. It was a very public and hostile exchange of ideas.
Quote #5
I too once danced in a ring. It was in 1948. In my country, the Communists had taken power, the Socialist and democratic Christian ministers had taken refuge abroad, and I took other Communist students by the hands or shoulders and we took two steps in place, one step forward, raised the left leg to one side and then the right to the other, and we did this nearly every month, because we always had something to celebrate... (III.6.1)
Kundera has a complex relationship with Communism. In the beginning, he too was a "guardian of the idyll." But after some time, he became dissatisfied with the way things were going and spoke out against the party. This didn't sit well with the regime, so they began to take action against him: he lost his job, his books were banned, and he had no social life to speak of. This effectively cut him off from the world. Because of this isolation, Kundera can't help but yearn for the past days of solidarity with his countrymen—even if they were tied to a political party out to destroy all personal freedoms.
Quote #6
She signed the statement and two days later the editor in chief called her in and told her she was dismissed, effective immediately. The same day she went to the radio offices, where she had friends who had long been offering her a job. They greeted her happily but when she came the next day to fill out the forms, the head of personnel, who liked her very much, met her with a look of distress: "What a stupid thing you've done my dear!" (III.7.7)
Kundera's young friend, R., who created an anonymous writing job for him at her publication when he had gotten on the bad side of the Communist Party, feels the wrath of the regime herself. It just goes to show that there's no such thing as an insignificant private citizen in a totalitarian state—everybody is important enough to destroy.
Quote #7
Soon they felt like lepers. When they left Bohemia, her husband's former colleagues signed a public statement slandering and condemning him. Surely they did that only so as not to lose their jobs as Tamina's husband had lost his job not long before. But they did it. (IV.12.4)
Tamina's experience as the wife of a political dissident reflects Kundera's firsthand experience with the unpleasantness of the Communist regime in his country. Although Tamina understands why her husband's friends and colleagues officially condemned him, it definitely leaves a bad taste in her mouth, and she never wants to return to Prague. Kundera himself reflected on the value of people standing up to the regime by refusing to sign such denunciations of friends—and he came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the risk to resist.
Quote #8
"...I've realized that the problem of power is the same everywhere, in your country and in ours, in the East as well as in the West. We should not try to replace one type of power with another, we should repudiate the very principle of power and repudiate it everywhere." (IV.19.6)
Hugo credits Tamina—who's just not that into his political theories—with the inspiration for this thought about governance. It sounds good on the surface, but Hugo's solution to the problem of power is a bit like Gonzalo's speech about having no government but being governor on Prospero's island: it's utterly contradictory and impossible to implement. Tamina doesn't really care about the particulars of the article he has written. All that matters is that Hugo will now be unable to fetch her notebooks for her from Prague.
Quote #9
I am watching them from the great distance of two thousand kilometers. It is the autumn of 1977, my country has been sweetly doing for nine years now in the strong embrace of the Russian empire, Voltaire has been expelled from the university, and my books, having been gathered up from all the public libraries, are locked away in some state cellar. (V."Poets".2)
Kundera pops in and out of timelines in this work to give historical significance to the stories he's creating. While Voltaire and the bevy of poets at the Writers Club get into it about what love really is, they can't know that a political disaster of epic proportions awaits them.
Quote #10
When in August 1968 thousands of Russian tanks occupied that amazing small country, I saw a slogan written on the walls of a town: "We don't want compromise, we want victory!" You must understand, by then there was no more than a choice among several varieties of defeat, but this town rejected compromise and wanted victory! That was litost talking! A man possessed by it takes revenge through his own annihilation. (V."Theory".4)
We've already gotten a good example of what litost is on a personal level (i.e., the student and his Olympic swimmer girlfriend), but Kundera wants to take it a step further and apply it to the political realm. He's not a huge fan of activism, so he sees the chutzpah of these townspeople as something foolish rather than heroic. They must have wanted even greater destruction, Kundera thinks, to have vented their frustration in this manner.