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 #4
Mirek rewrote history just like the Communist Party, like all political parties, like all peoples, like mankind. They shout that they want to shape a better future, but it's not true. The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to destroy or repaint it. We want to be masters of the future only for the power to change the past. (I.17.6)
Kundera gives the past a weighty value. It has the power to dictate how we move forward, as well as how we create ourselves as people or as a nation. If you take a look at any political campaign, you'll notice that there's a whole lot of modification of the past going on, just for this reason. Politicians are either spinning past events to make themselves look better (or less bad), or they're suppressing it to make sure that we don't find the skeletons in the closet.
Owning the past is power for the future: it's a free pass to control the national or personal story—and shape what it looks like in the future.
Quote #5
They wanted to efface thousands of lives from memory and leave nothing but an unstained age of unstained idyll. But Mirek is going to land his small body on that idyll, like a stain. He'll stay there just as Clementis's hat stayed on Gottwald's head. (I.19.4)
Mirek has made some questionable choices as a man living under a Communist regime. For one, he's kept detailed documents of conversations and meetings (including names) that will be used to destroy his own life and the lives of those around him. This is a total downer, but Mirek has found a silver lining in his downfall: his imprisonment will (one day) be proof that not all was sunshine and buttercups under Communist rule.
Quote #6
Recapturing the lines of his nose and chin, she was horrified every day to notice the imaginary sketch showing newly questionable points introduced by the uncertain memory that was doing the drawing. (IV.4.6)
Tamina has never left off grieving for her dead husband. She can't move on because she feels that her identity is completely wrapped up in her married life—and, by extension, in her husband's identity. Problem? Uh, he's dead. He no longer has an identity, except for what she retains in her memory. And that's getting pretty spotty.
Lost loved ones have a way of fading from our minds as we replace memories with present life. But Tamina can't accept this as a normal process because she doesn't value her present life in the same way as she values her past.