Quotes About Kafka

My main ambition as a teenager was to somehow resurrect the dark-minded writer Franz Kafka and become his girlfriend.

I learned my realism from guys like Kafka.

There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.

Dear God, I don't want to have invented my faith to satisfy my weakness. I don't want to have created God to my own image as they're so fond of saying. Please give me the necessary grace, oh Lord, and please don't let it be as hard to get as Kafka made it.

Whoever utters 'Kafkaesque' has neither fathomed nor intuited nor felt the impress of Kafka's devisings. If there is one imperative that ought to accompany any biographical or critical approach, it is that Kafka is not to be mistaken for the Kafkaesque.

Soñé que la Tierra se acababa. Y que el único ser humano que contemplaba el final era Franz Kafka. En el cielo los Titanes luchaban a muerte. Desde un asiento de hierro forjado del parque de Nueva York Kafka veía arder el mundo.

Kafka understood that travel, sex, and books are paths that lead nowhere except to the loss of the self, and yet they must be followed and the self must be lost, in order to find it again, or to find something, whatever it may be - a book, an expression, a misplaced object - in order to find anything at all, a method, perhaps, and, with a bit of luck, the "new," which has been there all along.

They say ignorance is bliss.... they're wrong

Forget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You see only its emptiness, you search in every corner and don't find yourself.

You must not pay too much attention to opinions. The written word is unalterable, and opinions are often only an expression of despair.

the blend of absurd, surreal and mundane which gave rise to the adjective kafkaesque

One idiot is one idiot. Two idiots are two idiots. Ten thousand idiots are a political party.

The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.

Like tired dogs they stand there, because they use up all their strength in remaining upright in one's memory.

you are the knife i turn inside myself; that is love, that, my dear, is love

The man in ecstasy and the man drowning - both throw up their arms. The first to signify harmony, the second to signify strife with the elements.

If they were shocked, then Gregor had no further responsibility and could be calm. But if they took everything calmly, he he, too, had no reason to get excited and could, if he hurried, actually be at the station by eight o'clock.

my heart no longer beats but is a tugging muscle

Torment yourself as little as possible, then you'll torment me less.

I hope it is nothing serious. On the other hand, I must also say that we business people, luckily or unluckily, however one looks at it, very often simply have to overcome a slight indisposition for business reasons.

My health is only just good enough for myself alone, not good enough for marriage, let alone fatherhood. Yet when I read your letter, I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked.

For Kafka, paradise wasn't a place where people lived in the past and of which a memory has survived, but rather a perennial, hidden presence. In every moment, an immense, encompassing obstacle prevents us from seeing it. That obstacle is nothing other than the expulsion from paradise—a process Kafka called "eternal in its principal aspect.

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.

They don't make mistakes. Our authorities, as far as I am aware - and I know only the lowest ranks - don't actually look for guilt in the population, but are, as the law says, drawn towards guilt and must send us guards out. That's the law. Where would there be a mistake? 'I don't know this law', said K. 'That's your problem,' said the guard. 'It probably only exists in your minds', said K.