“Noise has one advantage. It drowns out words. And suddenly he realized that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the end no words were precise, their meanings were obliterated, their content lost, they turned into trash, chaff dust, sand; prowling through his brain, tearing at his head. they were his insomnia, his illness. And what he yearned for at that moment, vaguely, but with all his might, was unbounded music, absolute sound, a pleasant and happy all-encompassing, over-poering, window-rattling din to engulf, once and for all, the pain, the futility, the vanity of words. Music was the negation of sentences, music was the anti-word!”

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Originally said in English.

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About Milan Kundera

Czech novelist and essayist of the 20th century, Kundera is best known for his sharp, philosophical explorations of memory, identity, and totalitarianism. His works, including *The Unbearable Lightness of Being*, blend fiction with political commentary, offering layered critiques of human experience under oppression.

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