928 Quotes by Franz Kafka

No, freedom was not what I wanted. Only a way out; right or left, or in any direction; I made no other demand; even should the way out prove to be an illusion; the demand was a small one, the disappointment could be no bigger. To get out somewhere, to get out! Only not to stay motionless with raised arms, crushed against a wooden wall.

to be sure, all that pointless standing about and waiting day after day always starting all over again without any prospect of change, will wear a man down and make him doubtful, and ultimately incapable of anything but that despairing standing about.

Pe cine nu mai cheamă, pe acela îl uită cu desăvârșire. N-am vrut să vorbesc despre asta de față cu Frieda. Dar nu e numai uitare, e mai mult decât atât. Căci pe cine ai uitat, poți să-l cunoști din nou. În cazul lui Klamm asta nu e posibil. Pe cine nu mai cheamă, pe acela l-a uitat complet, nu numai pentru trecut, dar, ca să zic așa, și pentru viitor.

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.

If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow to the head, why bother reading it in the first place?.... A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us."--Franz Kafka in a letter to Oskar Pollak dated January 27, 1904

Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible, then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres.

Ah, coherence, that old canard. All the books are full of it, in all the classrooms the teachers are chalking it up on the blackboard; the mother dreams of it while her baby is at her breast - and there you are, sitting here, asking me about coherence. You must have had an unusually misspent youth.

The observer of the soul cannot penetrate into the soul, but there doubtless is a margin where he comes into contact with it.

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.