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c963050
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It's sometimes quite astonishing that a single, average life is enough to encompass so much that it's at all possible ever to have any success in one's work here.
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Franz Kafka |
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ba1c058
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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.
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Franz Kafka |
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34cfde5
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So perhaps the best resource is to meet everything passively, to make yourself an inert mass, to stare at others with the eyes of an animal, to feel no compunction, with your own hand to throttle down whatever ghostly life remains in you.
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Franz Kafka |
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d894dc4
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If something good has lost its way into you, it will make its escape overnight. I know you.
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Franz Kafka |
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db4920e
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Deceptions are more frequent than changes
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Franz Kafka |
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566c876
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What am I doing in this eternal winter?
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franz-kafka
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Franz Kafka |
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44ac934
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If they were shocked, then Gregor had no further responsibility and could be calm. But if they took everything calmly, he he, too, had no reason to get excited and could, if he hurried, actually be at the station by eight o'clock.
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Franz Kafka |
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16f8088
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I don't know,' I cried without being heard, 'I do not know, If nobody comes, then nobody comes. I've done nobody any harm, nobody's done me any harm, but nobody will help me. A pack of nobodies. Yet that isn't all true. Only, that nobody helps me - a pack of nobodies would be rather fine, on the other hand. I'd love to go on an excursion - why not? - with a pack of nobodies. Into the mountains, of course, where else? How these nobodies jost..
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nobodies
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Franz Kafka |
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66c0579
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you are the knife i turn inside myself; that is love, that, my dear, is love
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Franz Kafka |
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ecf8e9f
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Then his head sank to the floor of its own accord and from his nostrils came the last faint flicker of his breath.
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Franz Kafka |
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6a4486d
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There are times when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.
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Franz Kafka |
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d716b0d
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The Expulsion from Paradise is eternal in its principal aspect: this makes it irrevocable, and our living in this world inevitable, but the eternal nature of the process has the effect that not only could we remain forever in Paradise, but that we are currently there, whether we know it or not.
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present
heaven
present-moment
forever
existentialism
paradise
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Franz Kafka |
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1db6a44
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But I cannot find my way in this darkness," said K. "Turn left to the wall," said the priest, "then follow the wall without leaving it and you'll come to a door." The priest had already taken a step or two away from him, but K. cried out in a loud voice, "please wait a moment." "I am waiting," said the priest. "Don't you want anything more form me?" asked K. "No," said the priest. "You were so friendly to me for a time," said K., "and expla..
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Franz Kafka |
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76dedef
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nh lmm yw'lm Gy@ l'lm 'n yuHkm lmru bnan `l~ qwnyn l y`rfh
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Franz Kafka |
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b77f6cc
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I ought to be able to invent words capable of blowing the odor of corpses in a direction other than straight into mine and the reader's face.
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Franz Kafka |
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789382d
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Always only the desire to die and the not-yet-yielding; this alone is love.
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Franz Kafka |
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a2e2fb9
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Judgement does not come suddenly; the proceedings gradually merge into the judgement.
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Franz Kafka |
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4fbd95d
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There am I. I cannot leave. I have nothing to complain about. I do not suffer excessively, for I do not suffer consistently, it does not pile up, at least I do not feel it for the time being, and the degree of my suffering is far less than the suffering that is perhaps my due.
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Franz Kafka |
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52416f1
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It is as if I were made of stone, as if I were my own tombstone, there is no loophole for doubt or for faith, for love or repugnance, for courage or anxiety, in particular or in general, only a vague hope lives on, but no better than the inscriptions on tombstones.
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hope
despair
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Franz Kafka |
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5719d37
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However, Gregor had become much calmer. All right, people did not understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than previously, perhaps because had gotten used to them
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words
self-expression
society
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Franz Kafka |
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eb79817
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nh lnsyn llf llHlm ldhy try'y lf mrh , w tm nsynh lf mrh
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Franz Kafka |
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4eba9b8
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Down Here and up there are all the same to me. Whether I lie here in the gutter and stow away the rain water or drink champagne up there with the same lips makes no difference to me, not even in the taste.
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Franz Kafka |
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57172a2
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My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast.
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Franz Kafka |
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a72b4f2
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I mustn't look at you too much, or I won't be able to take my eyes off you at all.
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Franz Kafka |
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dfd93c9
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This afternoon the pain occasioned by my loneliness came upon me so piercingly and intensely that I became aware that the strength which I gain through this writing thus spends itself, a strength which I certainly have not intended for this purpose.
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Franz Kafka |
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1da191e
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What do I have in common with Jews? I hardly have anything in common with myself, and really ought to go stand myself perfectly still in a corner, grateful to be able to breathe.
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Franz Kafka |
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4094164
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You've seen yourself how difficult the writing is to decipher with your eyes, but our man deciphers it with his wounds.
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in-the-penal-colony
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Franz Kafka |
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e7f0464
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The longer one hesitates before the door, the more estranged one becomes.
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truth
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Franz Kafka |
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a8d431c
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I didn't want any new clothes at all; because if I had to look ugly anyway, I wanted to at least be comfortable. I let the awful clothes affect even my posture, walked around with my back bowed, my shoulders drooping, my hands and arms all over the place. I was afraid of mirrors, because they showed an inescapable ugliness.
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body-dysmorphic-disorder
clothes
ugliness
mirrors
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Franz Kafka |
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4e307ea
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n lmr ykwn blG l'nny@ `ndm ykwn mt`ban
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Franz Kafka |
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eddf171
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You're not cross with me, though?" he said. She pulled her hand away and answered, "No, no, I'm never cross with anyone."
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Franz Kafka |
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b310cb4
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Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.
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virtue
vice
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Franz Kafka |
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5f4d2e5
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fn fkrh mn lfkr l ymkn n tnqrD mhm knt mtTflh ,m dmt qd wjdt dht mrh ,w nh l ymknh `ly lql n tnqrD dwn Sr` rhyb ,w dwn n ttmkn mn tHqyq lnfsh df` f`l ynjH fy n ythbt Twyl
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Franz Kafka |
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fe91d7f
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Since there was nothing at all I was certain of, since I needed to be provided at every instant with a new confirmation of my existence, since nothing was in my very own, undoubted, sole possession, determined unequivocally only by me -- in sober truth a disinherited son -- naturally I became unsure even of the thing nearest to me, my own body.
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childhood-trauma
narcissistic-personality
narcissism
shame
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Franz Kafka |
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736a869
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all [the authorities] did was to guard the distant and invisible interests of distant and invisible masters
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Franz Kafka |
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25f4014
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Next time I come here," he said to himself, "I must either bring sweets with me to make them like me or a stick to hit them with."
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Franz Kafka |
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d21f601
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He is afraid the shame will outlive him.
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Franz Kafka |
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81913bb
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Once again I have told you so little, and have asked no questions, and once again I must close. But not a single answer and, even more certainly, not a single question shall be lost. There exists some kind of sorcery by which two people, without seeing each other, without talking to each other, can at least discover the greater part about each other's past, literally in a flash, without having to tell each other all and everything; but this..
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Franz Kafka |
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b7a2655
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The crows assert that a single crow could destroy the heavens. This is certainly true, but it proves nothing against the heavens, because heaven means precisely: the impossibility of crows.
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Franz Kafka |
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c924595
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I'm not in the right place - alas, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that I'm not in the right place.
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Franz Kafka |
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2026a5a
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and i would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more
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Franz Kafka |
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803e9f8
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During last night's insomnia, as these thoughts came and went between my aching temples, I realised once again, what I had almost forgotten in this recent period of relative calm, that I tread a terribly tenuous, indeed almost non-existent soil spread over a pit full of shadows, whence the powers of darkness emerge at will to destroy my life...
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darkness
insomnia
destruction
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Franz Kafka |
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1160476
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I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be on one's guard against them.
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misery
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Franz Kafka |
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fa44447
|
Gregor's serious wound, from which he suffered for over a month - the apple remained imbedded in his flesh as a visible souvenir since no one dared to remove it - seemed to have reminded even his father that Gregor was a member of the family, in spite of his present pathetic and repulsive shape, who could not be treated as an enemy; that, on the contrary, it was the commandment of the family duty to swallow their disgust and endure him, end..
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surreal
surrealism
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Franz Kafka |