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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.

-Franz Kafka

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The More Horses You

Franz Kafka

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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.

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

Guiding Principles

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

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

Association With Human Beings Lures One Into Self-observation.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Was He An Animal, That Music Could Move Him So? He Felt As If The Way To The Unknown Nourishment He Longed For Were Coming To Light.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Love Is A Drama Of Contradictions.

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.

For Words Are Magical Formulae. They Leave Finger Marks Be Hind On The Brain, Which In The Twinkling Of An Eye Become The Footprints Of History. One Ought To Watch One' S Every Word.

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.

It Would Have Been So Pointless To Kill Himself That, Even If He Had Wanted To, The Pointlessness Would Have Made Him Unable.

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

Humility Provides Everyone, Even Him Who Despairs In Solitude, With The Strongest Relationship To His Fellow Man.

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

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.

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

You Can Hold Yourself Back From The Sufferings Of The World, That Is Something You Are Free To Do And It Accords With Your Nature, But Perhaps This Very Holding Back Is The One Suffering You Could Avoid.

World Suffering

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

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.

Every Word First Looks Around In Every Direction Before Letting Itself Be Written Down By Me.

A Non-writing Writer Is A Monster Courting Insanity.

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.

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

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.

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.

Isolation Is A Way To Know Ourselves.

I Never Wish To Be Easily Defined.

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

From The True Antagonist Illimitable Courage Is Transmitted To You.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

In A Way, I Was Safe Writing

I Am Free And That Is Why I Am Lost.

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

So Long As You Have Food In Your Mouth, You Have Solved All Questions For The Time Being.

I Can't Feel A Thing; All Mournful Petal Storms Are Dancing Inside The Very Private Spring Of My Head.

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.

Everyone Carries A Room About Inside Him. This Fact Can Even Be Proved By Means Of The Sense Of Hearing. If Someone Walks Fast And One Pricks Up One’s Ears And Listens, Say In The Night, When Everything Round About Is Quiet, One Hears, For Instance, The Rattling Of A Mirror Not Quite Firmly Fastened To The Wall.

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

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.

There's An Infinite Amount Of Hope But Not For Us.

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

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.

The Indestructible Is One: It Is Each Individual Human Being And, At The Same Time, It Is Common To All, Hence The Incomparably Indivisible Union That Exists Between Human Beings.

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.

Writing Means Revealing Oneself To Excess.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Questions And Answers

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

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

Ignorance Is Bliss

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.

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

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

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.

What Is Written Is Merely The Dregs Of Experience.

We Are Sinful Not Only Because We Have Eaten Of The Tree Of Knowledge, But Also Because We Have Not Yet Eaten Of The Tree Of Life. The State In Which We Are Is Sinful, Irrespective Of Guilt.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Man Cannot Live Without A Continuous Confidence In Something Indestructible Within Himself.

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

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?

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.

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.

I Write Differently From What I Speak, I Speak Differently From What I Think, I Think Differently From The Way I Ought To Think, And So It All Proceeds Into Deepest Darkness.

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.

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

We Need The Books That Affect Us Like A Disaster, That Grieve Us Deeply, Like The Death Of Someone We Loved More Than Ourselves, Like Being Banished Into Forests Far From Everyone, Like A Suicide. A Book Must Be The Axe For The Frozen Sea Inside Us.

Please — Consider Me A Dream.

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

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.

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.

. . . 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.

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.

"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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Evil Is Whatever Distracts.

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.

Ours Is A Lost Generation, It May Be, But It Is More Blameless Than Those Earlier Generations.

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

The True Way Goes Over A Rope Which Is Not Stretched At Any Great Height But Just Above The Ground. It Seems More Designed To Make People Stumble Than To Be Walked Upon.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

World Suffering

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

Writers Speak Stench.

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

In A Certain Sense The Good Is Comfortless.

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.

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.

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.

I Like To Make Use Of What I Know

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Limited Circle Is Pure.

The Meaning Of Life Is That It Stops.

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

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

Religions Get Lost As People Do.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

In The Struggle Between Yourself And The World Second The World.

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.

Nothing Is As Deceptive As A Photograph.

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.

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