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I Do Not Speak As I Think, I Do Not Think As I Should, And So It All Goes On In Helpless Darkness.

-Franz Kafka

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I Do Not Speak

Franz Kafka

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I Do Not Speak As I Think, I Do Not Think As I Should, And So It All Goes On In Helpless Darkness.

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

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

The Man In Ecstasy And The Man Drowning: Both Raise Their Arms.

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

The Whole Visible World Is Perhaps Nothing Other Than A Motivation Of Man's Wish To Rest For A Moment An Attempt To Falsify The Fact Of Knowledge, To Try To Turn The Knowledge Into The Goal.

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

Anyone Who Believes Cannot Experience Miracles. By Day One Does Not See Any Stars. Anyone Who Does Miracles Says: I Cannot Let Goof The Earth.

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.

Writing [is] A Form Of Prayer.

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.

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.

Some Deny The Existence Of Misery By Pointing To The Sun; He Denies The Existence Of The Sun By Pointing To Misery.

I Think We Ought To Read Only The Kind Of Books That Wound And Stab Us. If The Book We Are Reading Doesn't Wake Us Up With A Blow On The Head, What Are We Reading It For?

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

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

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.

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

This Inescapable Duty To Observe Oneself: If Someone Else Is Observing Me, Naturally I Have To Observe Myself Too; If None Observe Me, I Have To Observe Myself All The Closer.

I Cannot Make You Understand. I Cannot Make Anyone Understand What Is Happening Inside Me. I Cannot Even Explain It To Myself.

Only The Moment Counts. It Determines Life.

No One Can Crave What Truly Harms Him.

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.

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.

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

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.

Idleness Is The Beginning Of All Vice, The Crown Of All Virtues.

Last Night I Dreamed About You. What Happened In Detail I Can Hardly Remember, All I Know Is That We Kept Merging Into One Another. I Was You, You Were Me. Finally You Somehow Caught Fire.

It's Impossible To Defend Oneself In The Absence Of Goodwill

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.

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

There Sat I, A Faded Being, Under Faded Leaves.

How Can One Take Delight In The World Unless One Flees To It For Refuge?

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

What Is Gayer Than Believing In A Household God?

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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

I Believe That We Should Read Only Those Books That Bite And Sting Us. If A Book We Are Reading Does Not Rouse Us With A Blow To The Head, Then Why Read It?

What Is Written Is Merely The Dregs Of Experience.

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.

You See, I Have Only Such A Fugitive Awareness Of Things Around Me That I Always Feel They Were Once Real And Are Now Fleeting Away.

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

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.

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.

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.

Believing Means Liberating The Indestructible Element In Oneself, Or, More Accurately, Liberating Oneself, Or, More Accurately, Being Indestructible, Or, More Accurately, Being.

All Language Is But A Poor Translation.

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

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.

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.

I Never Wish To Be Easily Defined.

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.

The Crows Maintain That A Single Crow Could Destroy The Heavens. There Is No Doubt Of That, But It Proves Nothing Against The Heavens, For Heaven Simply Means: The Impossibility Of Crows.

The Cruelty Of Death Lies In The Fact That It Brings The Real Sorrow Of The End, But Not The End. The Greatest Cruelty Of Death: An Apparent End Causes A Real Sorrow. Our Salvation Is Death, But Not This One.

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

The Diabolical Sometimes Assumes The Aspect Of The Good, Or Even Embodies Itself Completely In Its Form. If This Remains Concealedfrom Me, I Am Of Course Defeated, For This Good Is More Tempting Than The Genuine Good.

Writing Means Revealing Oneself To Excess.

The Bible Is A Sanctum; The World, Sputum.

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

For Everything Outside The Phenomenal World, Language Can Only Be Used Allusively, But Never Even Approximately In A Comparative Way, Since, Corresponding As It Does To The Phenomenal World, It Is Concerned Only With Property And Its Relations.

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.

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.

One Must Not Cheat Anyone, Not Even The World Of Its Victory.

Photography Concentrates One's Eye On The Superficial. For That Reason It Obscures The Hidden Life Which Glimmers Through The Outlines Of Things Like A Play Of Light And Shade. One Can't Catch That Even With The Sharpest Lens.

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

Don Quixote's Misfortune Is Not His Imagination, But Sancho Panza.

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

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

Inspirational Birthday

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

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

Books Are A Narcotic.

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

To Write Prescriptions Is Easy, But To Come To An Understanding With People Is Hard.

To Every Instant There Is A Correspondence In Something Outside Time. This World Here And Now Cannot Be Followed By A Beyond, For The Beyond Is Eternal, Hence It Cannot Be In Temporal Contact With This World Here And Now.

We All Have Wings, But They Have Not Been Of Any Avail To Us And If We Could Tear Them Off, We Would Do So.

I Never Wish To Be Easily Defined. I’d Rather Float Over Other People’s Minds As Something Strictly Fluid And Non-perceivable; More Like A Transparent, Paradoxically Iridescent Creature Rather Than An Actual Person.

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.

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.

Start With What Is Right Rather Than What Is Acceptable.

One Reads In Order To Ask Questions

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.

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.

In The Fight Between You And The World, Back The World.

Writers Speak Stench.

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.

I Carry The Bars Within Me.

Evil Is Whatever Distracts.

If The Literature We Are Reading Does Not Wake Us, Why Then Do We Read It? A Literary Work Must Be An Ice-axe To Break The Sea Frozen Inside Us.

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.

They Say Ignorance Is Bliss.... They're Wrong

Ignorance Is Bliss

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Human Nature, Essentially Changeable, As Unstable As The Dust, Can Endure No Restraint; If It Binds Itself It Soon Begins To Tear Madly At Its Bonds, Until It Rends Everything Asunder, The Wall, The Bonds, And Its Very Self.

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.

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.

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.

The Kafka Paradox: Art Depends On Truth, But Truth, Being Indivisable, Cannot Know Itself: To Tell The Truth Is To Lie. Thus The Writer Is The Truth, And Yet When He Speakes He Lies.

Telling The Truth

I Usually Solve Problems By Letting Them Devour Me.

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

A Book Should Serve As An Axe To The Ice Inside Us.

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

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

Guiding Principles

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.

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

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

Kill Me, Or You Are A Murderer.

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.

I Miss You Deeply, Unfathomably, Senselessly, Terribly.

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

You Are So Vulnerably Haunting. Your Eeriness Is Terrifyingly Irresistible.

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.

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

World Suffering

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

By Imposing Too Great A Responsibility, Or Rather, All Responsibility, On Yourself, You Crush Yourself.

Like Tired Dogs They Stand There, Because They Use Up All Their Strength In Remaining Upright In One's Memory.

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

Association With Human Beings Lures One Into Self-observation.

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

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

Misunderstanding

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

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

There Has Never Been A Time In Which I Have Been Convinced From Within Myself That I Am Alive. You See, I Have Only Such A Fugitive Awareness Of Things Around Me That I Always Feel They Were Once Real And Are Now Fleeting Away. I Have A Constant Longing, My Dear Sir, To Catch A Glimpse Of Things As They May Have Been Before They Show Themselves To Me.

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

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.

Torment Yourself As Little As Possible, Then You'll Torment Me Less.

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.

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

Logic May Indeed Be Unshakeable, But It Cannot Withstand A Man Who Is Determined To Live.

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?

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.

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.

What A Fate: To Be Condemned To Work For A Firm Where The Slightest Negligence At Once Gave Rise To The Gravest Suspicion! Were All The Employees Nothing But A Bunch Of Scoundrels, Was There Not Among Them One Single Loyal Devoted Man Who, Had He Wasted Only An Hour Or So Of The Firm's Time In The Morning, Was So Tormented By Conscience As To Be Driven Out Of His Mind And Actually Incapable Of Leaving His Bed?

This Perversion Of The Truth, Familiar To The Artist Though It Was, Always Unnerved Him Afresh And Proved Too Much For Him. What Was A Consequence Of The Premature Ending Of His Fast Was Here Presented As The Cause Of It! To Fight Against This Lack Of Understanding, Against A Whole World Of Nonunderstanding, Was Impossible.

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.

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

You Do Not Need To Leave Your Room. Remain Sitting At Your Table And Listen. Do Not Even Listen, Simply Wait, Be Quiet, Still And Solitary. The World Will Freely Offer Itself To You To Be Unmasked, It Has No Choice, It Will Roll In Ecstasy At Your Feet.

The Truth Is Always An Abyss. One Must — As In A Swimming Pool — Dare To Dive From The Quivering Springboard Of Trivial Everyday Experience And Sink Into The Depths, In Order To Later Rise Again — Laughing And Fighting For Breath — To The Now Doubly Illuminated Surface Of Things.

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

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

One Morning, As Gregor Samsa Was Waking Up From Anxious Dreams, He Discovered That In His Bed He Had Been Changed Into A Monstrous Bug.

I Do Not Read Advertisements. I Would Spend All Of My Time Wanting Things.

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

The Purpose Of A Story Is To Be An Axe That Breaks Up The Ice Within Us.

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

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.

A Book Must Be An Ice-axe To Break The Seas Frozen Inside Our Soul.

I, However, Cannot Force Myself To Use "meat Drugs" To Cheat On My Loneliness.

There Is Nothing Bad To Fear; Once You Have Crossed That Threshold, All Is Well. Another World, And You Do Not Have To Speak

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

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

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

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

I Don't Know Who The Great Lawyers Are, And I Presume You Can't Get To Them. I Know Of No Case Where It Can Be Said For Certain That They Took Part. They Defend Some People, But You Can't Get Them To Do That Through Your Own Efforts, They Only Defend The Ones They Want To Defend. But I Assume A Case They Take On Must Have Progressed Beyond The Lower Court. It's Better Not To Think Of Them At All, Otherwise You'll Find The Consultations With The Other Lawyers, Their Advice And Their Assistance, Extremely Disgusting And Useless.

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

Disaster Preparedness

There Was Once A Community Of Scoundrels, That Is To Say, They Were Not Scoundrels, But Ordinary People.

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.

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

There Is A Destination But No Way There; What We Refer To As Way Is Hesitation.

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.

The Meaning Of Life Is That It Stops.

One Day, A Leopard Stalked Into The Synagogue, Roaring And Lashing Its Tail. Three Weeks Later, It Had Become Part Of The Liturgy.

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.

I Never Imagined That So Many Days Would Ultimately Make Such A Small Life.

One Of The First Signs Of The Beginning Of Understanding Is The Wish To Die. This Life Appears Unbearable, Another Unattainable. One Is No Longer Ashamed Of Wanting To Die; One Asks To Be Moved From The Old Cell, Which One Hates, To A New One, Which One Willl Only In Time Come To Hate. In This There Is Also A Residue Of Belief That During The Move The Master Will Chance To Come Along The Corridor, Look At The Prisoner And Say: "this Man Is Not To Be Locked Up Again, He Is To Come With Me.

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

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

In A Certain Sense The Good Is Comfortless.

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

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

Picasso Only Registers The Deformities Which Have Not Yet Penetrated Our Consciousness. Art Is A Mirror Which Goes 'fast' Like A Watch - Sometimes.

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’m Tired, Can’t Think Of Anything And Want Only To Lay My Face In Your Lap, Feel Your Hand On My Head And Remain Like That Through All Eternity.

Nothing Is As Deceptive As A Photograph.

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

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.

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.

Beyond A Certain Point There Is No Return. This Point Has To Be Reached.

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.

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

Everything Is Deception: Seeking The Minimum Of Illusion, Keeping Within The Ordinary Limitations, Seeking The Maximum. In The First Case One Cheats The Good, By Trying To Make It Too Easy For Oneself To Get It, And The Evil By Imposing All Too Unfavorable Conditions Of Warfare On It. In The Second Case One Cheats The Good By Keeping As Aloof From It As Possible, And The Evil By Hoping To Make It Powerless Through Intensifying It To The Utmost.

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

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

When One Has Once Accepted And Absorbed Evil, It No Longer Demands To Be Believed.

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.

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

I Do Not Speak As I Think, I Do Not Think As I Should, And So It All Goes On In Helpless Darkness.

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

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

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.

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.

A Belief Is Like A Guillotine, Just As Heavy, Just As Light.

Utterance Does Not In Principle Mean A Weakening Of Conviction--that Would Not Be Anything To Be Deplored--but A Weakness Of Conviction.

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

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

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