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And In That Recurring Dream, I Found Myself Trapped In Some Sort Of Gigantic Game Of Which I Was Unfamiliar With The Rules; Lost In A Labyrinthine Town Of Dark And Damp, Criss-crossing Streets, Ambiguous Characters Of Uncertain Authority Having No Idea Of Why I Was There Nor What I Had To Do, And Where The First Sign Of The Beginning Of Understanding Was The Wish To Die.

-Franz Kafka

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And In That Recurring

Franz Kafka

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And In That Recurring Dream, I Found Myself Trapped In Some Sort Of Gigantic Game Of Which I Was Unfamiliar With The Rules; Lost In A Labyrinthine Town Of Dark And Damp, Criss-crossing Streets, Ambiguous Characters Of Uncertain Authority Having No Idea Of Why I Was There Nor What I Had To Do, And Where The First Sign Of The Beginning Of Understanding Was The Wish To Die.

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The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head. But How Free Myself And Free It Without Being Torn To Pieces. And A Thousand Times Rather Be Torn To Pieces Than Retain It In Me Or Bury It. That, Indeed, Is Why I Am Here, That Is Quite Clear To Me.

I Usually Solve Problems By Letting Them Devour Me.

German Is My Mother Tongue And As Such More Natural To Me, But I Consider Czech Much More Affectionate, Which Is Why Your Letter Removes Several Uncertainties; I See You More Clearly, The Movements Of Your Body, Your Hands, So Quick, So Resolute, It’s Almost Like A Meeting.

In A Certain Sense You Deny The Existence Of This World. You Explain Life As A State Of Rest, A State Of Rest In Motion.

May I Kiss You Then? On This Miserable Paper? I Might As Well Open The Window And Kiss The Night Air.

Every New Discovery Is Assumed At Once Into The Sum Total Of Knowledge, And With That Ceases In A Sense To Be A Discovery; It Dissolves Into The Whole And Disappears, And One Must Have A Trained Scientific Eye Even To Recognize It After That.

Art Flies Around Truth, But With The Definite Intention Of Not Getting Burnt. Its Capacity Lies In Finding In The Dark Void A Place Where The Beam Of Light Can Be Intensely Caught, Without This Having Been Perceptible Before.

It's Only Because Of Their Stupidity That They're Able To Be So Sure Of Themselves.

The Limited Circle Is Pure.

And I Leave My Post Of Observation And Find I Have Had Enough Of This Outside Life; I Feel That There Is Nothing More That I Can Learn Here, Either Now Or At Any Time. And I Long To Say A Last Goodbye To Everything Up Here, To Go Down Into My Burrow Never To Return Again, Let Things Take Their Course, And Not Try To Retard Them With My Profitless Vigils.

Love Has As Few Problems As A Motor Car. The Only Problems Are The Driver, The Passengers, And The Road.

The Fathers Of The Church Were Not Afraid To Go Out Into The Desert Because They Had A Richness In Their Hearts. But We, With Richness All Around Us, Are Afraid, Because The Desert Is In Our Hearts.

I Carry The Bars Within Me.

And So Gentlemen, I Learned. Oh, If You Have To Learn, You Learn; If You’re Desperate For A Way Out, You Learn; You Learn Pitilessly. You Stand Over Yourself With A Whip In Your Hand; If There’s The Least Resistance, You Lash Yourself.

I Miss You Deeply, Unfathomably, Senselessly, Terribly.

I Lack Nothing. I Only Needed Myself.

I Am A Cage, In Search Of A Bird.

What I Write Is Different From What I Say, What I Say Is Different From What I Think, What I Think Is Different From What I Ought To Think And So It Goes Further Into The Deepest Darkness.

Sometimes I'd Like To Stuff All Jews (myself Included) Into The Drawer Of A Laundry Basket. Then Open It To See If They've Suffocated

Slept, Awoke, Slept, Awoke, Miserable Life.

Not Everyone Can See The Truth, But He Can Be It.

The Observer Of The Soul Cannot Penetrate Into The Soul, But There Doubtless Is A Margin Where He Comes Into Contact With It. Recognition Of This Contact Is The Fact That Even The Soul Does Not Know Of Itself. Hence It Must Remain Unknown. That Would Be Sad Only If There Were Anything Apart From The Soul, But There Is Nothing Else.

The Notion Of The Infinite Expanse And Copiousness Of The Cosmos Is The Result Of The Mixture, Carried To The Extreme Limit, Of Laborious Creation And Free Self-determination.

Death Confronts Us Not Unlike The Historical Battle Scene That Hangs On The Wall Of The Classroom. It Is Our Task To Obscure Or Quite Obliterate The Picture By Our Deeds While We Are Still In This World.

As Gregor Samsa Awoke One Morning From Uneasy Dreams He Found Himself Transformed In His Bed Into A Gigantic Insect.

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

The Person I Am In The Company Of My Sisters Has Been Entirely Different From The Person I Am In The Company Of Other People. Fearless, Powerful, Surprising, Moved As I Otherwise Am Only When I Write.

There's No Quiet Place Here On Earth For Our Love, Not In The Village And Not Anywhere Else, So I Picture A Grave, Deep And Narrow, In Which We Embrace As If Clamped Together, I Bury My Face Against You, You Yours Against Me, And No One Will Ever See Us.

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.

Now I Can Look At You In Peace; I Don't Eat You Any More.

A Stair Not Worn Hollow By Footsteps Is, Regarded From Its Own Point Of View, Only A Boring Something Made Of Wood.

Writing Sustains Me. But Wouldn’t It Be Better To Say It Sustains This Kind Of Life? Which Doesn't Mean Life Is Any Better When I Don’t Write. On The Contrary, It Is Far Worse, Wholly Unbearable, And Inevitably Ends In Madness. This Is, Of Course, Only On The Assumption That I Am A Writer Even When I Don’t Write - Which Is Indeed The Case; And A Non-writing Writer Is, In Fact, A Monster Courting Insanity.

Writers Speak Stench.

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.

The Fact That Our Task Is Exactly Commensurate With Our Life Gives It The Appearance Of Being Infinite.

Everything You Say Is Boring And Incomprehensible, But That Alone Doesn't Make It True.

Love Is, That You Are The Knife Which I Plunge Into Myself.

To Animalise Is Humane, To Humanise Is Animal.

The Right Understanding Of Any Matter And A Misunderstanding Of The Same Matter Do Not Wholly Exclude Each Other.

Misunderstanding

All I Am Is Literature, And I Am Not Able Or Willing To Be Anything Else.

In Paradise, As Always: That Which Causes The Sin And That Which Recognizes It For What It Is Are One. The Clear Conscience Is Evil, Which Is So Entirely Victorious That It Does Not Any Longer Consider The Leap From Left To Right Necessary.

The Ulterior Motives With Which You Absorb And Assimilate Evil Are Not Your Own But Those Of Evil. The Animal Wrests The Whip From Its Master And Whips Itself In Order To Become Master, Not Knowing That This Is Only A Fantasy Produced By A New Knot In The Master's Whiplash.

Going To Pieces. To Go To Pieces So Pointlessly And Unnecessarily.

Knowledge We Have. Anyone Who Strives For It With Particular Intensity Is Suspect Of Striving Against It.

Two Tasks At The Beginning Of Your Life: To Narrow Your Orbit More And More, And Ever And Again To Check Whether You Are Not In Hiding Somewhere Outside Your Orbit.

In Argument Similes Are Like Songs In Love; They Describe Much, But Prove Nothing.

I Am In Chains. Don't Touch My Chains.

I Want In Fact More Of You. In My Mind I Am Dressing You With Light; I Am Wrapping You Up In Blankets Of Complete Acceptance And Then I Give Myself To You. I Long For You; I Who Usually Long Without Longing, As Though I Am Unconscious And Absorbed In Neutrality And Apathy, Really, Utterly Long For Every Bit Of You.

There Is A Goal But No Way; What We Call The Way Is Mere Wavering.

My Job Is Unbearable To Me Because It Conflicts With My Only Desire And My Only Calling, Which Is Literature. Since I Am Nothing But Literature And Can And Want To Be Nothing Else, My Job Will Never Take Possession Of Me, It May, However, Shatter Me Completely, And This Is By No Means A Remote Possibility.

No," Said The Priest, "you Don't Need To Accept Everything As True, You Only Have To Accept It As Necessary." "depressing View," Said K. "the Lie Made Into The Rule Of The World.

Hold Fast To The Diary From Today On! Write Regularly! Don't Surrender! Even If No Salvation Should Come, I Want To Be Worthy Of It Every Moment.

One Tells As Few Lies As Possible Only By Telling As Few Lies As Possible, And Not By Having The Least Possible Opportunity To Do So.

I Am More Uncertain Than I Ever Was; I Feel Only The Power Of Life. And I Am Senselessly Empty.

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 Is An Infinite Amount Of Hope In The Universe ... But Not For Us.

Sometimes I Think I Can Expiate All My Past And Future Sins Through The Aching Of My Bones.

The Decisive Moment In Human Evolution Is Perpetual. That Is Why The Revolutionary Spiritual Movements That Declare All Former Things Worthless Are In The Right, For Nothing Has Yet Happened.

Books Are A Narcotic.

People Who Walk Across Dark Bridges, Past Saints, With Dim, Small Lights. Clouds Which Move Across Gray Skies Past Churches With Towers Darkened In The Dusk. One Who Leans Against Granite Railing Gazing Into The Evening Waters, His Hands Resting On Old Stones.

Just Think How Many Thoughts A Blanket Smothers While One Lies Alone In Bed, And How Many Unhappy Dreams It Keeps Warm.

Written Kisses Don't Reach Their Destination, Rather They Are Drunk On The Way By The Ghosts.

But Gregor Understood Easily That It Was Not Only Consideration For Him Which Prevented Their Moving, For He Could Easily Have Been Transported In A Suitable Crate With A Few Air Holes; What Mainly Prevented The Family From Moving Was Their Complete Hopelessness And The Thought That They Had Been Struck By A Misfortune As None Of Their Relatives And Acquaintances Had Ever Been Hit.

Writing Is Utter Solitude, The Descent Into The Cold Abyss Of Oneself.

I Passed By The Brothel As Though Past The House Of A Beloved.

Psychology Is The Description Of The Reflection Of The Terrestial World In The Heavenly Plane, Or, More Correctly, The Description Of A Reflection Such As We, Soaked As We Are In Our Terrestial Nature, Imagine It, For No Reflection Actually Occurs, Only We See Earth Wherever We Turn.

Evil Is Whatever Distracts.

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.

I Can Once More Carry On A Conversation With Myself, And Don't Stare So Into Complete Emptiness. Only In This Way Is There Any Possibility Of Improvement For Me.

The Spirit Becomes Free Only When It Ceases To Be A Support.

He Who Seeks Does Not Find, But He Who Does Not Seek Will Be Found.

If What Was Supposed To Have Been Destroyed In Paradise Was Destructible, Then It Was Not Decisive; But If It Was Indestructible, Then We Are Living In A False Belief.

They're Talking About Things Of Which They Don't Have The Slightest Understanding, Anyway. It's Only Because Of Their Stupidity That They're Able To Be So Sure Of Themselves.

Man Cannot Live Without A Permanent Trust In Something Indestructible In Himself, Though Both The Indestructible Element And The Trust May Remain Permanently Hidden From Him. One Of The Ways In Which This Hiddenness Can Express Itself Is Through Faith In A Personal God.

Association With Human Beings Lures One Into Self-observation.

I Am Free And That Is Why I Am Lost.

The Experience Of Life Consists Of The Experience Which The Spirit Has Of Itself In Matter And As Matter, In Mind And As Mind, In Emotion, As Emotion, Etc.

I Wanted To Escape The Unrest, To Shut Out The Voices Around Me And Within Me, So I Write.

If There Is A Transmigration Of Souls Then I Am Not Yet On The Bottom Rung. My Life Is A Hesitation Before Birth.

The Old Incapacity. Interrupted My Writing For Barely Ten Days And Already Cast Out. Once Again Prodigious Efforts Stand Before Me. You Have To Dive Down, As It Were, And Sink More Rapidly Than That Which Sinks In Advance Of You.

Don't Despair, Not Even Over The Fact That You Don't Despair.

It Is Often Safer To Be In Chains Than To Be Free.

Anyone Who Renounces The World Must Love All Men, For He Renounces Their World Too. He Thus Begins To Have Some Inkling Of The True Nature Of Man, Which Cannot But Be Loved, Always Assuming That One Is Its Peer.

God Gives The Nuts, But He Does Not Crack Them.

Writing Is A Deeper Sleep Than Death. Just As One Wouldn't Pull A Corpse From Its Grave, I Can't Be Dragged From My Desk At Night.

He Is Terribly Afraid Of Dying Because He Hasn’t Yet Lived.

If Something Good Has Lost Its Way Into You, It Will Make Its Escape Overnight. I Know You.

If This Is What You Came For, Then I Didn't Send For You. Kafka (note To Himself In Journal)

If The Book We Are Reading Does Not Wake Us, As With A Fist Hammering On Our Skull, Why Then Do We Read It?

You Are At Once Both The Quiet And The Confusion Of My Heart.

That's How It Will Be, Except That In Reality, Both Today And Later, One Will Stand There With A Palpable Body And A Real Head, A Real Forehead, That Is, For Smiting On With One's Hand.

So Then You’re Free?’ ‘yes, I’m Free,’ Said Karl, And Nothing Seemed More Worthless Than His Freedom.

My Peers, Lately, Have Found Companionship Through Means Of Intoxication - It Makes Them Sociable. I, However, Cannot Force Myself To Use Drugs To Cheat On My Loneliness - It Is All That I Have - And When The Drugs And Alcohol Dissipate, Will Be All That My Peers Have As Well.

First Impressions Are Always Unreliable.

First Impression

Because Of Impatience We Were Driven Out [of Paradise]; Because Of Impatience We Cannot Return.

Do Not Waste Your Time Looking For An Obstacle - Maybe There Is None.

We Live In An Age Which Is So Possessed By Demons, That Soon We Shall Only Be Able To Do Goodness And Justice In The Deepest Secrecy, As If It Were A Crime.

Evil Is The Starry Sky Of The Good.

People Label Themselves With All Sorts Of Adjectives. I Can Only Pronounce Myself As 'nauseatingly Miserable Beyond Repair'.

One Must Fight To Get To The Top, Especially If One Starts At The Bottom.

Better To Have, And Not Need, Than To Need, And Not Have.

Disaster Preparedness

I Do Not See The World At All; I Invent It.

The State We Find Ourselves In Is Sinful Quite Independent Of Guilt.

True Undoubting Is The Teacher's Part, Continual Undoubting The Part Of The Pupil.

When K. Looked At The Castle, Often It Seemed To Him As If He Were Observing Someone Who Sat Quietly There In Front Of Him Gazing, Not Lost In Thought And So Oblivious Of Everything, But Free And Untroubled, As If He Were Alone With Nobody To Observe Him, And Yet Must Notice That He Was Observed, And All The Same Remained With His Calm Not Even Slightly Disturbed; And Really - One Did Not Know Whether It Was Cause Or Effect - The Gaze Of The Observer Could Not Remain Concentrated There, But Slid Away.

You Can Choose To Be Free , But It's Last Decision You'll Ever Make

It Receives You When You Come And Dismisses You When You Go.

A Picture Of My Existence... Would Show A Useless Wooden Stake Covered In Snow... Stuck Loosely At A Slant In The Ground In A Ploughed Field On The Edge Of A Vast Open Plain On A Dark Winter Night.

It's Sometimes Quite Astonishing That A Single, Average Life Is Enough To Encompass So Much That It's At All Possible Ever To Have Any Success In One's Work Here.

The History Of Mankind Is The Instant Between Two Strides Taken By A Traveler.

Hiding Places There Are Innumerable, Escape Is Only One, But Possibilities Of Escape, Again, Are As Many As Hiding Places.

A Lawyer Is A Person Who Writes A 10,000-word Document And Calls It A "brief."

If The Book We Are Reading Does Not Wake Us, As With A Fist Hammering On Our Skull, Why Then Do We Read? So That It Shall Make Us Happy? Good God, We Should Also Be Happy If We Had No Books, And Such Books As Make Us Happy We Could, If Need Be, Write Ourselves. But What We Must Have Are Those Books Which Come Upon Us Like Ill Fortune, And Distress Us Deeply, Like The Death Of One We Love Better Than Ourselves; Like Suicide. A Book Must Be An Ice-axe To Break The Sea Frozen Inside Us.

If I Didn't Have My Parents To Think About I'd Have Given In My Notice A Long Time Ago, I'd Have Gone Up To The Boss And Told Him Just What I Think, Tell Him Everything I Would, Let Him Know Just What I Feel. He'd Fall Right Off His Desk! And It's A Funny Sort Of Business To Be Sitting Up There At Your Desk, Talking Down At Your Subordinates From Up There, Especially When You Have To Go Right Up Close Because The Boss Is Hard Of Hearing.

Maybe Innocence Makes Its Way Easiest Through The Elemental Chaos Of This World.

There Will Be No Proof That I Ever Was A Writer.

If Education Tries To Make Other Persons Out Of Us Than We Essentially Are, Deeper Inside, It Stultifies, And Reproach Matters.

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

They Were Offered The Choice Between Becoming Kings Or The Couriers Of Kings. The Way Children Would, They All Wanted To Be Couriers. Therefore There Are Only Couriers Who Hurry About The World, Shouting To Each Other - Since There Are No Kings - Messages That Have Become Meaningless. They Would Like To Put An End To This Miserable Life Of Theirs But They Dare Not Because Of Their Oaths Of Service.

Some Books Seem Like A Key To Unfamiliar Rooms In One’s Own Castle.

From The True Antagonist Illimitable Courage Is Transmitted To You. To What Indifference People May Come, To What Profound Conviction Of Having Lost The Right Track Forever.

My Grandfather Used To Say: Life Is Astoundingly Short. To Me, Looking Back Over It, Life Seems So Foreshortened That I Scarcely Understand, For Instance, How A Young Man Can Decide To Ride Over To The Next Village Without Being Afraid That -not To Mention Accidents- Even The Span Of A Normal Happy Life May Fall Far Short Of The Time Needed For Such A Journey.

Writing Means Revealing Oneself To Excess.

A Man Of Action Forced Into A State Of Thought Is Unhappy Until He Can Get Out Of It.

From Outside One Will Always Triumphantly Impress Theories Upon The World And Then Fall Straight Into The Ditch One Has Dug, But Only From Inside Will One Keep Oneself And The World Quiet And True.

It Is Not Necessary To Accept Everything As True, One Must Only Accept It As Necessary.' 'a Melancholy Conclusion,' Said K. 'it Turns Lying Into A Universal Principle.

But Questions That Don’t Answer Themselves At The Very Moment Of Their Asking Are Never Answered.

There Are Some Things One Can Only Achieve By A Deliberate Leap In The Opposite Direction.

Life Is Merely Terrible; I Feel It As Few Others Do. Often — And In My Inmost Self Perhaps All The Time — I Doubt Whether I Am A Human Being.

Believing In Progress Does Not Mean Believing That Any Progress Has Yet Been Made.

The Thornbush Is The Old Obstacle In The Road. It Must Catch Fire If You Want To Go Further.

A Non-writing Writer Is A Monster Courting Insanity.

It Isn't Necessary That You Leave Home. Sit At Your Desk And Listen. Don't Even Listen, Just Wait. Don't Wait, Be Still And Alone. The Whole World Will Offer Itself To You.

And In That Recurring Dream, I Found Myself Trapped In Some Sort Of Gigantic Game Of Which I Was Unfamiliar With The Rules; Lost In A Labyrinthine Town Of Dark And Damp, Criss-crossing Streets, Ambiguous Characters Of Uncertain Authority Having No Idea Of Why I Was There Nor What I Had To Do, And Where The First Sign Of The Beginning Of Understanding Was The Wish To Die.

The Whole Visible World Is Perhaps Nothing More Than The Rationalization Of A Man Who Wants To Find Peace For A Moment.

My Guiding Principle Is This: Guilt Is Never To Be Doubted.

Guiding Principles

The Worries That Are The Burden Of Which The Privileged Person Makes An Excuse In Dealing With The Oppressed Person Are In Fact The Worries About Preserving His Privileged Condition.

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.

One Of The Most Effective Means Of Seduction That Evil Has Is The Challenge To Struggle. It Is Like The Struggle With Women, Whichends In Bed. A Married Man's True Deviations From The Path Of Virtue Are, Rightly Understood, Never Gay.

Celibacy And Suicide Are A Similar Levels Of Understanding, Suicide And A Martyr's Death Not So By Any Means, Perhaps Marriage And A Martyr's Death.

I Am Away From Home And Must Always Write Home, Even If Any Home Of Mine Has Long Since Floated Away Into Eternity.

There Are Questions We Could Not Get Past If We Were Not Set Free From Them By Our Very Nature.

I Have No Memory For Things I Have Learned, Nor Things I Have Read, Nor Things Experienced Or Heard, Neither For People Nor Events; I Feel That I Have Experienced Nothing, Learned Nothing, That I Actually Know Less Than The Average Schoolboy, And That What I Do Know Is Superficial, And That Every Second Question Is Beyond Me. I Am Incapable Of Thinking Deliberately; My Thoughts Run Into A Wall. I Can Grasp The Essence Of Things In Isolation, But I Am Quite Incapable Of Coherent, Unbroken Thinking. I Can't Even Tell A Story Properly; In Fact, I Can Scarcely Talk.

Officials Are Highly Educated But One-sided; In His Own Department An Official Can Grasp Whole Trains Of Thought From A Single Word, But Let Him Have Something From Another Department Explained To Him ... He Won't Understand A Word Of It.

Train Of Thought

All Science Is Methodolgy With Regard To The Absolute. Therefore, There Need Be No Fear Of The Unequivocally Methodological. It Isa Husk, But Not More Than Everything Except The One.

My 'fear' Is My Substance, And Probably The Best Part Of Me.

I Have Hardly Anything In Common With Myself And Should Stand Very Quietly In A Corner, Content That I Can Breathe.

I Think We Ought To Read Only The Kind Of Books That Wound And Stab Us.

Our Art Is A Way Of Being Dazzled By Truth: The Light On The Grotesquely Grimacing Retreating Face Is True, And Nothing Else.

I Need Solitude For My Writing; Not 'like A Hermit' - That Wouldn't Be Enough - But Like A Dead Man.

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.

But What If All The Tranquility, All The Comfort, All The Contentment Were Now To Come To A Horrifying End?

Test Yourself On Mankind. It Is Something That Makes The Doubter Doubt, The Believer Believe.

The Mediation By The Serpent Was Necessary. Evil Can Seduce Man, But Cannot Become Man.

Nothing Is As Deceptive As A Photograph.

I Can Love Only What I Can Place So High Above Me That I Cannot Reach It.

Every Dog Has Like Me The Impulse To Question, And I Have Like Every Dog The Impulse Not To Answer.

What If I Slept A Little More And Forgot About All This Nonsense.

"don't You Want To Join Us?" I Was Recently Asked By An Acquaintance When He Ran Across Me Alone After Midnight In A Coffeehouse That Was Already Almost Deserted. "no, I Don't," I Said.

Writer Speaks A Stench.

The Ulterior Motives With Which You Absorb And Assimilate Evil Are Not Your Own But Those Of Evil.

Religions Get Lost As People Do.

I Can Prove At Any Time That My Education Tried To Make Another Person Out Of Me Than The One I Became. It Is For The Harm, Therefore, That My Educators Could Have Done Me In Accordance With Their Intentions That I Reproach Them; I Demand From Their Hands The Person I Now Am, And Since They Cannot Give Him To Me, I Make Of My Reproach And Laughter A Drumbeat Sounding In The World Beyond.

Only The Moment Counts. It Determines Life.

In Me, By Myself, Without Human Relationship, There Are No Visible Lies. The Limited Circle Is Pure.

I Like To Make Use Of What I Know

Towards The Avoidance Of A Piece Of Verbal Confusion: What Is Intended To Be Actively Destroyed Must First Of All Have Been Firmly Grasped; What Crumbles Away Crumbles Away, But Cannot Be Destroyed.

Evil Is The Radiation Of The Human Consciousness In Certain Transitional Positions. It Is Not Actually The Sensual World That Is Amere Appearance; What Is So Is The Evil Of It, Which, Admittedly, Is What Constitutes The Sensual World In Our Eyes.

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.

The Founder Brought The Laws From The Lawgiver; The Faithful Are Meant To Announce The Laws To The Lawgiver.

Only Our Concept Of Time Makes It Possible For Us To Speak Of The Day Of Judgment By That Name In Reality It Is A Summary Court In Perpetual Session.

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.

What Is Written Is Merely The Dregs Of Experience.

Isolation Is A Way To Know Ourselves.

Two Possibilities: Making Oneself Infinitely Small Or Being So. The Second Is Perfection, That Is To Say, Inactivity, The First Is Beginning, That Is To Say, Action.

Written Kisses Never Arrive At Their Destination; The Ghosts Drink Them Up Along The Way.

Suffering Is The Positive Element In This World, Indeed It Is The Only Link Between This World And The Positive.

World Suffering

For We Are Like Tree Trunks In The Snow. In Appearance They Lie Smoothly And A Little Push Should Be Enough To Set Them Rolling. No, It Can't Be Done, For They Are Firmly Wedded To The Ground. But See, Even That Is Only Appearance.

The Various Forms Of Despair At The Various Stations On The Road.

I Answer One Of Your Letters, Then Lie In Bed In Apparent Calm, But My Heart Beats Through My Entire Body And Is Conscious Only Of You. I Belong To You; There Is Really No Other Way Of Expressing It, And That Is Not Strong Enough.

A First Sign Of The Beginning Of Understanding Is The Wish To Die.

In A Way, You Are Poetry Material; You Are Full Of Cloudy Subtleties I Am Willing To Spend A Lifetime Figuring Out. Words Burst In Your Essence And You Carry Their Dust In The Pores Of Your Ethereal Individuality.

He Was A Tool Of The Boss, Without Brains Or Backbone.

Time Is Short, My Strength Is Limited, The Office Is A Horror, The Apartment Is Noisy, And If A Pleasant, Straightforward Life Is Not Possible, Then One Must Try To Wriggle Through By Subtle Manoeuvres.

Youth Is Happy Because It Has The Ability To See Beauty. Anyone Who Keeps The Ability To See Beauty Never Grows Old.

Inspirational Birthday

We Were Expelled From Paradise, But It Was Not Destroyed. The Expulsion From Paradise Was In One Sense A Piece Of Good Fortune, For If We Had Not Been Expelled, Paradise Would Have Had To Be Destroyed.

He Is A Free And Secure Citizen Of The World Because He Is On A Chain That Is Long Enough To Allow Him Access To All Parts Of The Earth, And Yet Not So Long That He Could Be Swept Over The Edge Of It.

Nothing, You Know, Gives The Body Greater Satisfaction Than Ordering People About, Or At Least Believing In One's Ability To Do So.

I See, These Books Are Probably Law Books, And It Is An Essential Part Of The Justice Dispensed Here That You Should Be Condemned Not Only In Innocence But Also In Ignorance.

Should I Be Grateful Or Should I Curse The Fact That Despite All Misfortune I Can Still Feel Love, An Unearthly Love But Still For Earthly Objects.

From A Real Antagonist One Gains Boundless Courage.

From The True Antagonist Illimitable Courage Is Transmitted To You.

Anybody Who Preserves The Ability To Recognize Beauty Will Never Get Old.

All Human Errors Are Impatience, A Premature Breaking Off Of Methodical Procedure, An Apparent Fencing-in Of What Is Apparently At Issue.

Many A Book Is Like A Key To Unknown Chambers Within The Castle Of One’s Own Self.

The Messiah Will Only Come When He Is No Longer Needed.

He Who Does Not Answer The Questions Has Passed The Test.

Simply Wait, Be Quiet, Still The World Will Freely Offer Itself To You.

I Hate Everything That Does Not Relate To Literature, Conversations Bore Me (even If They Relate To Literature), To Visit People Bores Me, The Sorrows And Joys Of My Relatives Bore Me To The Very Soul. Conversation Takes The Importance, The Seriousness, The Truth, Out Of Everything I Think.

Dread Of Night. Dread Of Not-night.

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