Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.
FRANZ KAFKABelieving in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.
FRANZ KAFKAForget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You see only its emptiness, you search in every corner and don’t find yourself.
FRANZ KAFKAMy guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
FRANZ KAFKAI need solitude for my writing; not ‘like a hermit’ – that wouldn’t be enough – but like a dead man.
FRANZ KAFKAThe 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 speaks he lies.
FRANZ KAFKAEvil is whatever distracts.
FRANZ KAFKAYouth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
FRANZ KAFKAWe photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.
FRANZ KAFKAI think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.
FRANZ KAFKAAll language is but a poor translation.
FRANZ KAFKAKill me, or you are a murderer.
FRANZ KAFKAI can love only what I can place so high above me that I cannot reach it.
FRANZ KAFKAMay I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.
FRANZ KAFKAI do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.
FRANZ KAFKAFirst impressions are always unreliable.
FRANZ KAFKABooks are a narcotic.
FRANZ KAFKA