Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being.
Interpretation
Literary works should uncover deeper truths about humanity to hold value.
Milan Kundera suggests that the worth of a literary work lies in its ability to illuminate aspects of human existence that are not commonly understood or recognized. Through the exploration of these hidden fragments of life, literature can provide meaningful insights and contribute to a greater understanding of the human experience.
In practice
During a speech at a literary festival, one could emphasize the importance of literature in revealing the human experience by quoting Kundera.
Which doesn't mean, of course, that I'd stopped loving her, that I'd forgotten her, or that her image had paled; on the contrary; in the form of a quiet nostalgia she remained constantly within me; I longed for her as one longs for something definitively lost.
Facts mean little compared to attitudes. To contradict rumor or sentiment is as futile as arguing against a believer's faith in the Immaculate Conception. You have simply become a victim of faith, Comrade Assistant.
While people are fairly young and the musical composition of their lives is still in its opening bars, they can go about writing it together and sharing motifs (the way Tomas and Sabina exchanged the motif of the bowler hat), but if they meet when they are older, like Franz and Sabina, their musical compositions are more or less complete, and every motif, every object, every word means something different to each of them.
Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.
To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace.
Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses: an individual observes his partner intently, straining to catch every sound.
When he moves, a streetlight stabs him, and the words flow out like blood.
A portrait, to be a work of art, neither must nor may resemble the sitter... one must paint its atmosphere.
Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.
Expression for me does not reside in passions glowing in a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive; the place occupied by my figures, the empty space around them, the proportions, everything has its share.
Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.
Time gives growth, it gives continuity and it gives change. And in the case of some sculptures, time gives a patina to them.
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