Quotes from Franz Kafka

I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.

I can't think of any greater happiness than to be with you all the time, without interruption, endlessly, even though I feel that here in this world there's no undisturbed place for our love, neither in the village nor anywhere else; and I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more.

Paths are made by walking

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

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. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful.

He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn't yet lived.

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.

I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.

There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us.

I never wish to be easily defined. I'd rather float over other people's minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person.

I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.

I'm tired, can't think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

The whole visible world is perhaps nothing more than the rationalization of a man who wants to find peace for a moment.

I am a very unhappy human being and you, dearest, simply had to be summoned to create an equilibrium for all this misery.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

No sooner is it a little calmer with me than it is almost too calm, as though I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy

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... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.