Franz Kafka Quotes

Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

I am too tired, I must try to rest and sleep, otherwise I am lost in every respect. What an effort to keep alive! Erecting a monument does not require an expenditure of so much strength.

This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me.

There they lay, but not in the forgetfulness of the previous night. She was seeking and he was seeking, they raged and contorted their faces and bored their heads into each others bosom in the urgency of seeking something, and their embraces and their tossing limbs did not avail to make them forget, but only reminded them of what they sought

It receives you when you come and dismisses you when you go.

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.

L'éternité, c'est long ... surtout vers la fin.

Si el libro que leemos no nos despierta de un puñetazo en el cráneo, ¿para qué leerlo?… Un libro tiene que ser un hacha que rompa el mar de hielo que llevamos dentro.

Self-control is something for which I do not strive. Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

If I could drown in sleep as I drown in fear I would be no longer alive.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves.

Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence... someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.

We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.

The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon.