Quotes from Franz Kafka

The contentment today in my room. Hollow as a shell on the beach, ready to be crushed by a footstep

I avoid people not in order to be able to live in peace, but in order to be able to die in peace.

And where do you see in all this the influence of the Castle? asked K. So far it doesn't seem to have come in. What you've told me about is simply the ordinary senseless fear of the people, malicious pleasure in hurting a neighbor, specious friendship, things that can be found anywhere,...

Das Gericht will nichts von Dir. Es nimmt Dich auf wenn Du kommst und es entläßt Dich wenn du gehst.

I am a typical example of Western Jew. This means I don't have a moment of peace, that nothing has come easily to me, not just the present and the future, but even the past, that thing that each man receives as his birth-right: even that I have to conquer, and perhaps that is the hardest task.

DEAR NEPHEW,    As you will already have realized during our much too brief companionship, I am essentially a man of principle. That is unpleasant and depressing not only to those who come in contact with me, but also to myself as well. Yet it is my principles that have made me what I am, and no one can ask me to deny my fundamental self. Not even you, my dear nephew.

There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: impatience and laziness. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of laziness we cannot return. Perhaps, however, there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out, because of impatience we cannot return.

The court wants nothing from you. It receives you when you come and dismisses you when you go.

K. knew that there was no threat of actual compulsion, he had no fear of that, especially not here, but the force of these discouraging surroundings and of the increasing familiarity with ever more predictable disappointments, the force of scarcely perceptible influences at every moment, these he certainly did fear, but even in the face of this danger he had to risk taking up the struggle.

Enlightenment comes to the most dull-witted. It begins around the eyes. From there it radiates.

I asked myself at the time: how is it that she is not astonished at herself, that she keeps her mouth closed, and expresses nothing of any wonderment?

If you can laugh into the telephone, you must be a very accomplished telephonist. The very thought of the telephone makes me forget laughter.

An Empress drank her husband's blood in long draughts thousands of years ago.

There is infinite hope, but not for man.

Toda esta escritura no es otra cosa que la bandera de Robinson en el punto más alto de la isla.

You cannot love me, much as you would like; you are unhappily in love with your love for me, but your love for me is not in love with you.

I'm not suggesting that you don't master German. Most of the time you master it surprisingly well and if once in a while you don't, it bows before you of its own accord, and this is particularly pleasing, for this is something a German doesn't dare to expect from his language, he doesn't dare to write so personally.

And, incidentally: freedom is all too often self-deception among people. Just as freedom is among the most exalted of feelings, so the corresponding deception is among the most exalted of deceptions.

O God," he thought, "what a demanding job I've chosen! Day in, day out on the road. The stresses of trade are much greater than the work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I have to deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all!

ALAS," said the mouse, "the world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up. Translated

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate –he has little success in this –but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different (and more) things than do the others; after all, dead as he is in his own lifetime, he is the real survivor. This assumes that he does not need both hands, or more hands than he has, in his struggle against despair.

Milena lütfen bana yard?m edin! Söyleyebildiklerimden daha da fazlas?n? anlamaya çal???n.

Ah, one learns when one has to; one learns when one needs a way out; one learns at all costs. One stands over oneself with a whip; one flays oneself at the slightest opposition.

Forgive me for not having answered you right off, but I still have not developed the technique for making good use of my few hours; midnight comes apace, as now.