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If All Responsibility Is Imposed On You, Then You May Want To Exploit The Moment And Want To Be Overwhelmed By The Responsibility;yet If You Try, You Will Notice That Nothing Was Imposed On You, But That You Are Yourself This Responsibility.

-Franz Kafka

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If All Responsibility Is

Franz Kafka

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If All Responsibility Is Imposed On You, Then You May Want To Exploit The Moment And Want To Be Overwhelmed By The Responsibility;yet If You Try, You Will Notice That Nothing Was Imposed On You, But That You Are Yourself This Responsibility.

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

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.

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.

Please — Consider Me A Dream.

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.

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.

Just Because Your Doctor Has A Name For Your Condition, Doesn't Mean He Knows What It Is.

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 Is As Deceptive As A Photograph.

Even The Merest Gesture Is Holy If It Is Filled With Faith.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

There Are Only Two Things. Truth And Lies. Truth Is Indivisible, Hence It Cannot Recognize Itself; Anyone Who Wants To Recognize It Has To Be A Lie.

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.

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

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.

I Have Spent My Life Resisting The Desire To End It.

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.

Productivity Is Being Able To Do Things That You Were Never Able To Do Before.

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

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

Inspirational Birthday

What's Happened To Me,' He Thought. It Was No Dream.

What Is Written Is Merely The Dregs Of Experience.

I Carry The Bars Within Me.

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

The Delights Of This Life Are Not Its Own, But Our Fear Of The Ascent Into A Higher Life; The Torments Of This Life Are Not Its Own, But Our Self-torment Because Of That Fear.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

One Reads In Order To Ask Questions

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.

I Am A Cage, In Search Of A Bird.

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.

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

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

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.

Follow Your Most Intense Obsessions Mercilessly.

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.

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.

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 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.

First Impressions Are Always Unreliable.

First Impression

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.

I Have The True Feeling Of Myself Only When I Am Unbearably Unhappy.

We Photograph Things In Order To Drive Them Out Of Our Minds. My Stories Are A Way Of Shutting My Eyes.

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?

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.

Only The Moment Counts. It Determines Life.

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.

Paths Are Made By Walking

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Human Judgment Of Human Actions Is True And Void , That Is To Say, First True And Then Void.... The Judgment Of The Word Is True, The Judgment In Itself Is Void.... Only He Who Is A Party Can Really Judge, But As A Party He Cannot Judge. Hence It Follows That There Is No Possibility Of Judgment In The World, Only A Glimmer Of It.

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.

I No Longer Know If I Wish To Drown Myself In Love, Vodka Or The Sea.

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

Love Is A Drama Of Contradictions.

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

In A Way, I Was Safe Writing

There Are Two Main Human Sins From Which All The Others Derive: Impatience And Indolence. It Was Because Of Impatience That They Were Expelled From Paradise; It Is Because Of Indolence That They Do Not Return. Yet Perhaps There Is Only One Major Sin: Impatience. Because Of Impatience They Were Expelled, Because Of Impatience They Do Not Return.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Isolation Is A Way To Know Ourselves.

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?

What Do I Have In Common With Jews? I Don't Even Have Anything In Common With Myself.

I Am A Retiring, Silent, Unsociable, And Discontent Person.

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

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

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?

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.

The Messiah Will Come Only When He Is No Longer Necessary, He Will Come Only One Day After His Arrival, He Will Not Come On The Last Day, But On The Last Day Of All.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

The True Word Leads; The Untrue Misleads.

The Fact That There Is Nothing But A Spiritual World Deprives Us Of Hope And Gives Us Certainty.

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

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.

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.

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.

Expulsion From Paradise Is In Its Main Aspect Eternal: That Is To Say, Although Expulsion From Paradise Is Final, And Life In Theworld Unavoidable, The Eternity Of The Process (or, Expressed In Temporal Terms, The Eternal Repetition Of The Process) Nevertheless Makes It Possible Not Only That We Might Remain In Paradise Permanently, But That We May In Fact Be There Permanently, No Matter Whether We Know It Here Or Not.

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.

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.

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.

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

Ignorance Is Bliss

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

All Knowledge, The Totality Of All Questions And Answers, Is Contained In The Dog.

Questions And Answers

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

There Are Two Cardinal Human Sins Out Of Which All Others Derive, Deviate, And Dissipate: Impatience And Lassitude (or Perhaps Nonchalance). On Account Of Impatience They Are Driven Out Of Paradise; On Account Of Lassitude Or Nonchalance They Do Not Return. Perhaps, However, Only One Main Sense Of Sin Is Given: Impatience. On Account Of Impatience They Are Driven Out, On Account Of Impatience They Do Not Turn Back.

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.

I Like To Make Use Of What I Know

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

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

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

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

It Is Strange How Little Sharpsightedness Women Possess; They Only Notice Whether They Please, Then Whether They Arouse Pity, And Finally, Whether You Look For Compassion From Them. That Is All; Come To Think Of It, It May Even Be Enough, Generally Speaking.

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

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.

Sensual Love Deceives One As To The Nature Of Heavenly Love; It Could Not Do So Alone, But Since It Unconsciously Has The Element Of Heavenly Love Within It, It Can Do So.

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

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.

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.

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

Most Men Are Not Wicked... They Are Sleep-walkers, Not Evil Evildoers.

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.

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

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

If You Find Someone Who Makes You Smile, Who Checks Up On You Often To See If You're Okay. Who Watches Out Or You And Wants The Best For You. Who Loves And Respects You. Don't Let Them Go. People Like That Are Hard To Find.

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.

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

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

Disaster Preparedness

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

Kill Me, Or You Are A Murderer.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Being Alone Has A Power Over Me That Never Fails. My Interior Dissolves (for The Time Being Only Superficially) And Is Ready To Release What Lies Deeper. When I Am Willfully Alone, A Slight Ordering Of My Interior Begins To Take Place And I Need Nothing More.

What Is Gayer Than Believing In A Household God?

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.

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.

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 Never Wish To Be Easily Defined.

The Meaning Of Life Is That It Stops.

A Non-writing Writer Is A Monster Courting Insanity.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Guiding Principles

It Requires Enormous Presence Of Mind Or Rather Quickness Of Wit, When Opening Your Eyes To Seize Hold As It Were Of Everything In The Room At Exactly The Same Place Where You Had Let It Go On The Previous Evening. That Is Why The Moment Of Waking Up Was The Riskiest Moment Of The Day. Once That Was Well Over Without Deflecting You From Your Orbit, You Could Take Heart Of Grace For The Rest Of The Day.

Presence Of Mind

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The Bible Is A Sanctum; The World, Sputum.

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.

. . . The Books We Need Are The Kind That Act Upon Us Like A Misfortune, That Make Us Suffer Like The Death Of Someone We Love More Than Ourselves, That Make Us Feel As Though We Were On The Verge Of Suicide, Or Lost In A Forest Remote From All Human Habitation-a Book Should Serve As An Axe For The Frozen Sea Within Us.

From A Real Antagonist One Gains Boundless Courage.

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

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.

Association With Human Beings Lures One Into Self-observation.

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.

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

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

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.

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

One Advantage In Keeping A Diary Is That You Become Aware With Reassuring Clarity Of The Changes Which You Constantly Suffer.

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

"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.

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William Hazlitt

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