Milan Kundera

"As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about."

"It is a tragicomic fact that our proper upbringing has become an ally of the secret police. (...) The 'Tell the truth!' imperative drummed into us so automatically that we feel ashamed of lying even to a secret policeman."