Quotes from Franz Kafka

If the doorkeeper sees clearly, one might have doubts about that, but if the doorkeeper is deceived, the deception must necessarily carry over to the man. In that case, teh doorkeeper is indeed no deceiver, but is so simpleminded that he should be dismissed immediately from service. You have to realize that the state of deception in which the doorkeeper finds himself doesn't harm him but harms the man a thousandfold.

I want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.

Deutschland hat Rußland den Krieg erklärt - Nachmittag Schwimmschule. (Germany has declared war on Russia. Swimming in the afternoon) Franz Kafka, diary, August 2, 1914

Le ha salvado y al hacerlo se ha sacrificado

Recently, (...) I saw a girl buying the Tribuna (...), obviously because of the fashion article. She wasn't especially well dressed, not *yet*.

I am free and that's why I am lost

Os postes da rua projetavam um reflexo pálido no teto e na parte superior dos móveis, mas ali em baixo, no local onde se encontrava, estava escuro.

Wie ein Hund! sagte er, es war, als sollte die Scham ihn überleben.

fire breaks out and I see nothing but fire

Der Sinn für die Darstellung meines traumhaften innern Lebens hat alles andere ins Nebensächliche gerückt, und es ist in einer schrecklichen Weise verkümmert und hört nicht auf, zu verkümmern. Nichts anderes kann mich jemals zufriedenstellen.

A veces también se tomaba el excesivo trabajo de empujar una butaca hasta la ventana, y, trepando por el alféizar, permanecía de pie en la butaca y apoyado en la ventana, sumido, sin duda, en sus recuerdos, pues antaño le interesaba siempre mirar por la ventana aquella.

In the first two weeks his parents could not bring themselves to visit him

Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never.

He has the feeling that merely by being alive he is blocking his own way. From this sense of hindrance, in turn, he deduces the proof that he is alive.

Uyudum, uyand?m. Uyudum, uyand?m. Kepaze bir ya?am.

Don't bend, don't water it down: don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. Franz Kafka

One ought, Milena, to take your face in both hands and look you square in the eye, so that you would see yourself in the eyes of the other person, then you could not even think the kinds of things you wrote there.

It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.

It's only in dreams that I am so sinister.

Pues son las circunstancias; el hecho de que a uno le guste o no una cosa no siempre es lo decisivo. Por

I can't keep a storm in my room

Don't shut your eyes, don't give in to illusions, I will never change. My need to keep up an uninterrupted exchange of letters with you comes not from love but from my unhappy disposition

I don't even consider them guilty; it's the organization that's guilty, it's the high officials who are guilty.

However beautiful it looked, it was quite inadequate to illuminate the altarpieces which mostly hung in the gloom of the side chapels; it only made the darkness more intense.