It is not, however, only the word, it is also the thing, in all its infinite complexity, that he [Kafka] articulates with unrivaled courage and clarity. For, since he fears power in any form, since the real aim of his life is to withdraw from it, in whatever form it may appear, he detects it, identifies it, names it, and creates figures of it in every instance where others would accept it as being nothing out of the ordinary.

For him [Kafka], the most tormenting thing about his notion of marriage must have been its ruling out the possibility of one's ever becoming so small as to be able to vanish: one has to be there.

For a good part of his [Kafka's] work consists of tentative steps toward perpetually changing possibilities of future. He does not acknowledge a single future, there are many; this multiplicity of futures paralyzes him and burdens his step.

The trouble is, I am not at peace with myself; I am not always "something," and if for once I am "something," I pay for it by "being nothing" for months on end.'—Kafka, quoted by Canetti

There is, in Kafka, a sort of sleep-worship; he regards sleep as a panacea.

He [Kafka] did not have for his private and interior processes that disregard which distinguishes insignificant writers from writers of imagination. A person who thinks that he is empowered to separate his inner world from the outer one has no inner world from which something might be separable.

The freedom to fail is preserved, as a sort of supreme law, which guarantees escape at every fresh juncture. One is inclined to call this the freedom of the weak person who seeks salvation in defeat. His true uniqueness, his special relation to power, is expressed in the prohibition of victory. All calculations originate and end in impotence.

If anyone was ever cognizant of the need and function of 'litanies', it was Kafka.