Quotes from Franz Kafka

We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood. When you stand before me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs within me and what do I know of yours? And if I were to cast myself down before you and tell you, what more would you know about me than you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell

I have now, and have had since this afternoon, a great yearning to write all of my anxiety entirely out of me.

Faptele dumneavoastra vor lasa poate urme adînci de pasi în zapada, dar atît.

But all remains unchanged.

For a man under suspicion movement is better than rest, for the man who is at rest can always, without knowing it, be on the scales being weighed together with his sins.

Yesterday I advised you not to write me every day, I still hold the same opinion today and it would be very good for both of us, and so I repeat my advice today even more emphatically - only please, Milena, don't listen to me, and write me every day anyway

When I say something, this thing immediately and definitively loses its importance. When I write it down, it also loses it, but sometimes gains another importance.

Alle menschlichen Fehler sind Ungeduld, ein vorzeitiges Abbrechen des Methodischen, ein scheinbares Einpfählen der scheinbaren Sache.

There was always something in me to catch fire, in this heap of straw that I have been.

That is a very poor career, but only a poor career give the world the light that an imperfect, but pretty good writer wants to generate--at all costs, unfotunately.

One does not have to believe everything is true, one only has to believe it is necessary.

no one else has ever taken my side as knowingly and willingly as you, despite everything, despite everything

I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones.

I sink into your eyes whenever I'm looking at you

Life is as infinitely great and profound as the immensity of the stars above us. One can only look at it through the narrow keyhole of one's own personal experience. But through it one perceives more than one can see. So above all one must keep the keyhole clean.

The chains that cuff humanity are made of office paper

they had so much to worry about at present that they had lost sight of any thought for the future.

They linked arms with him in a way K. had never walked with anyone before

The existence of the writer is an argument against the existence of the soul, for the soul has obviously taken flight from the real ego, but not improved itself, only become a writer.

Silent, not from embarrassment or any other reason, but simply silent.

Nobody reaches through here, least of all with a message from one who is dead. You, however, sit at your window and dream of the message when evening comes.

Cara signora Milena, la giornata è molto breve, con Lei e soltanto con qualche altra inezia è bell'e passata e terminata. E' molto se rimane un po' di tempo per scrivere alla vera Milena perché quella ancor più vera era qui tutto il giorno nella camera, sul balcone, nelle nuvole.

How badly I even read. And with what malice and weakness I observe myself. Apparently I cannot force my way into the world, but lie quietly, receive, spread out within me what I have received, and then step calmly forth.

So if you find nothing in the corridors open the doors, and if you find nothing behind these doors there are more floors, and if you find nothing up there, don't worry, just leap up another flight of stairs. As long as you don't stop climbing, the stairs won't end, under your climbing feet they will go on growing upwards