Michael Henderson > Michael's Quotes

“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”
― Franz Kafka

“You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.”
― Franz Kafka, The Trial

“Dear Milena,
I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.” Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time? Or what if time, as we know it, is irrelevant? Ah, if only the world were ending tomorrow. We could help each other very much.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man.”
― Franz Kafka

“In man's struggle against the world, bet on the world.”
― Franz Kafka

“One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one willl only in time come to hate. In this there is also a residue of belief that during the move the master will chance to come along the corridor, look at the prisoner and say: "This man is not to be locked up again, He is to come with me.”
― Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks

“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”
― Franz Kafka

“I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication--it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness--it is all that I have--and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.”
― Franz Kafka

“I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face”
― Franz Kafka

“Most men are not wicked... They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers.”
― Franz Kafka

“You are free and that is why you are lost.”
― Franz Kafka, Letter to His Father

“I am not well; I could have built the Pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice

“I am dirty, Milena, endlessly dirty, that is why I make such a fuss about cleanliness. None sing as purely as those in deepest hell; it is their singing we take for the singing of angels.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“I’m doing badly, I’m doing well, whichever you prefer.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“Just think how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm.”
― Franz Kafka, The Complete Stories

“Please — consider me a dream.”
― Franz Kafka

“The 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 Kafka

“I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.”
― Franz Kafka

“The limited circle is pure.”
― Franz Kafka

“Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
― Franz Kafka

“Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into."
"You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.”
― Franz Kafka

“Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment.”
― Franz Kafka

“There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.”
― Franz Kafka

“Sometimes I have the feeling that we're in one room with two opposite doors and each of us holds the handle of one door, one of us flicks an eyelash and the other is already behind his door, and now the first one has but to utter a word ad immediately the second one has closed his door behind him and can no longer be seen. He's sure to open the door again for it's a room which perhaps one cannot leave. If only the first one were not precisely like the second, if he were calm, if he would only pretend not to look at the other, if he slowly set the room in order as though it were a room like any other; but instead he does exactly the same as the other at his door, sometimes even both are behind the doors and the the beautiful room is empty.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“Anyone who cannot cope with life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate...but with his other hand he can jot down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different and more things than the others; after all, he is dead in his own lifetime and the real survivor.”
― Franz Kafka

“Hold fast to the diary from today on! Write regularly! Don't surrender! Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it every moment.”
― Franz Kafka

“I lack nothing. I only needed myself.”
― Franz Kafka

“I only fear danger where I want to fear it.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis