928 Quotes by Franz Kafka

I, however, cannot force myself to use "meat drugs" to cheat on my loneliness.

I am in chains. Don't touch my chains.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

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.

There they lay, but not in the forgetfulness of the previous night. She was seeking and he was seeking, they raged and contorted their faces and bored their heads into each others bosom in the urgency of seeking something, and their embraces and their tossing limbs did not avail to make them forget, but only reminded them of what they sought

Only the moment counts. It determines life.

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.

Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.

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.