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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.

-Franz Kafka

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But Gregor Understood Easily

Franz Kafka

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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

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Let Me Remind You Of The Old Maxim: People Under Suspicion Are Better Moving Than At Rest, Since At Rest They May Be Sitting In The Balance Without Knowing It, Being Weighed Together With Their Sins.

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From A Certain Point Onward There Is No Longer Any Turning Back. That Is The Point That Must Be Reached.

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

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Ignorance Is Bliss

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

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.

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The More Horses You Yoke The Quicker Everything Will Go - Not The Rending Of The Block From Its Foundation, Which Is Impossible, But The Snapping Of The Traces And With That The Gay And Empty Journey.

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

How Pathetically Scanty My Self-knowledge Is Compared With, Say, My Knowledge Of My Room. There Is No Such Thing As Observation Of The Inner World, As There Is Of The Outer World.

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It Would Be Very Unjust To Say That You Deserted Me, But That I Was Deserted, And Sometimes Terribly So, Is True.

There Are Times When I Am Convinced I Am Unfit For Any Human Relationship.

Human Relations

Anything That Has Real And Lasting Value Is Always A Gift From Within.

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.

If You Become Involved With Me, You Will Be Throwing Yourself Into The Abyss.

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

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.

We Were Created In Order To Live In Paradise, And Paradise Was Ordained To Serve Us. What Was Ordained For Us Has Been Changed; It Is Not Said That This Has Also Happened With What Was Ordained For Paradise.

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

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.

Martyrs Do Not Underrate The Body, They Allow It To Be Elevated On The Cross. In This They Are At One With Their Antagonists.

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.

Either The World Is So Tiny Or We Are Enormous; In Either Case, We Fill It Completely.

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

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

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.

In Man's Struggle Against The World, Bet On The World.

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.

What Is Written Is Merely The Dregs Of Experience.

Anyone Who Loves His Neighbor Within The Limits Of The World Is Doing No More And No Less Injustice Than Someone Who Loves Himself Within The Limits Of The World.

As Far As I Have Seen, At School...they Aimed At Blotting Out One's Individuality.

Please — Consider Me A Dream.

But Eternity Is Not Temporality At A Standstill. What Is Oppressive About The Concept Of The Eternal Is The Justification, Incomprehensible To Us, That Time Must Undergo In Eternity And The Logical Conclusion Of That, The Justification Of Ourselves As We Are.

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

All Language Is But A Poor Translation.

Religions Get Lost As People Do.

Tyranny Or Slavery, Born Of Selfishness, Are The Two Educational Methods Of Parents; All Gradations Of Tyranny Or Slavery.

Each Of Us Has His Own Way Of Emerging From The Underworld, Mine Is By Writing. That's Why The Only Way I Can Keep Going, If At All, Is By Writing, Not Through Rest And Sleep. I Am Far More Likely To Achieve Peace Of Mind Through Writing Than The Capacity To Write Through Peace.

They Did Not Know What We Can Now Guess At, Contemplating The Course Of History: That Change Begins In The Soul Before It Appears In Ordinary Existence.

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

World Suffering

Art Is For The Artist Is Only Suffering Through Which He Releases Himself For Further Suffering.

Marrying, Founding A Family, Accepting All The Children That Come, Supporting Them In This Insecure World, And Perhaps Even Guiding Them A Little, Is, I Am Convinced, The Utmost A Human Being Can Succeed In Doing At All.

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

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

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

Someone Must Have Slandered Josef K., For One Morning, Without Having Done Anything Truly Wrong, He Was Arrested.

This Morning, For The First Time In A Long Time, The Joy Again Of Imagining A Knife Twisted In My Heart.

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At That Point I Asked Myself: How Is It That She Is Not Amazed At Herself, That She Keeps Her Lips Closed And Makes No Such Remark?

Adam's First Domestic Pet After The Expulsion From Paradise Was The Serpent.

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.

It Was Like This. The Brain Could No Longer Bear The Worries And Pains That Were Imposed On It. It Said: "i'm Giving Up; But If There Is Anyone Else Here Who Is Interested In Preserving The Whole, Let Him Assume Part Of My Burden And It Will Be Alright For A Bit.

Kill Me, Or You Are A Murderer.

Self-control Means Wanting To Be Effective At Some Random Point In The Infinite Radiations Of My Spiritual Existence.

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

Misunderstanding

It Is Comforting To Reflect That The Disproportion Of Things In The World Seems To Be Only Arithmetical.

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.

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Writers Speak Stench.

You Need Not Even Listen, Just Wait...the World Will Offer Itself Freely To You, Unmasking Itself.

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

April 27. Incapable Of Living With People, Of Speaking. Complete Immersion In Myself, Thinking Of Myself. Apathetic, Witless, Fearful. I Have Nothing To Say To Anyone - Never.

We Need The Books That Affect Us Like A Disaster

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

In A Way, I Was Safe Writing

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

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

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.

A Book Must Be The Ax For The Frozen Sea Within Us.

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

Palestine Needs Earth, But It Does Not Need Lawyers.

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

Atlas Was Permitted The Opinion That He Was At Liberty, If He Wished, To Drop The Earth And Creep Away; But This Opinion Was All That He Was Permitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

You're Not Cross With Me, Though?" He Said. She Pulled Her Hand Away And Answered, "no, No, I'm Never Cross With Anyone.

There Art Two Cardinal Sins From Which All Others Spring: Impatience And Laziness.

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

When One Has Once Accepted And Absorbed Evil, It No Longer Demands The Unfitness Of The Means. The Ulterior Motives With Which Youabsorb And Assimilate Evil Are Not Your Own But Those Of Evil.... Evil Is Whatever Distracts. Evil Knows Of The Good, But Good Does Not Know Of Evil. Knowledge Of Oneself Is Something Only Evil Has. One Means That Evil Has Is The Dialogue.... One Cannot Pay Evil In Installments--and One Always Keeps On Trying To.

Isolation Is A Way To Know Ourselves.

Dread Of Night. Dread Of Not-night.

Leopards Break Into The Temple And Drink All The Sacrificial Vessels Dry; It Keeps Happening; In The End, It Can Be Calculated In Advance And Is Incorporated Into The Ritual.

If I Shall Exist Eternally, How Shall I Exist Tomorrow?

The Meaning Of Life Is That It Stops.

Youth Is Happy Because It Has The Capacity To See Beauty.

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

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

To Animalise Is Humane, To Humanise Is Animal.

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.

I Made The Remark That I Don't Avoid People In Order To Live Quietly, But Rather In Order To Be Able To Die Quietly.

Always First Draw Fresh Breath After Outbursts Of Vanity And Complacency.

What Is Gayer Than Believing In A Household God?

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

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

My Doubts Stand In A Circle Around Every Word, I See Them Before I See The Word, But What Then! I Do Not See The Word At All, I Invent It.

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

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

Every Revolution Evaporates And Leaves Behind Only The Slime Of A New Bureaucracy.

What Am I Doing Here In This Endless Winter?

Life's Splendor Forever Lies In Wait About Each One Of Us In All Its Fullness, But Veiled From View, Deep Down, Invisible, Far Off. It Is There, Though, Not Hostile, Not Reluctant, Not Deaf. If You Summon It By The Right Word, By Its Right Name, It Will Come.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

No Sooner Said Than Done - So Acts Your Man Of Worth.

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