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.