Franz Kafka Quotes

He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.

I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.

I can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.

We are as forlorn as children lost in the woods. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours. And if I were to cast myself down before you and weep and tell you, what more would you know about me than you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell.

I am always trying to convey something that can’t be conveyed, to explain something which is inexplicable, to tell about something I have in my bones, something which can be expressed only in the bones.

The limited circle is pure.

I’m thinking only of my illness and my health, though both, the first as well as the second, are you.

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

You misinterpret everything, even the silence.

What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense.

"Alas," said the mouse, "the whole 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 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.

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

Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment.

It certainly was not my intention to make you suffer, yet i have done so; obviously it never will be my intention to make you suffer, yet I shall always do so.

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.