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“غيابُكِ هو الذي يجعلني حاضراً في كل شيءٍ إلاَّ في تمامِ رجائي ورغبتي. لا أصحو منكِ إلا بالنسيان، مؤقتّاً، أُخالطُ الصَحْبَ أو أُزاولُ عملاً وأحسبُ أنّي شُفيتُ إذ يستردُّني شأن الحياة. غِيابُكِ ينتشلني من الغَيْبةِ حِيالَ العالم لكنه يرميني في الغَيْبةِ حيالَ الأنا.”
― بسام حجار, معجم الأشواق

“The three of them knew it. She was Kafka’s mistress. Kafka had dreamt her. The three of them knew it. He was Kafka’s friend. Kafka had dreamt him. The three of them knew it. The woman said to the friend, Tonight I want you to have me. The three of them knew it. The man replied: If we sin, Kafka will stop dreaming us. One of them knew it. There was no longer anyone on earth. Kafka said to himself Now the two of them have gone, I’m left alone. I’ll stop dreaming myself.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“He was shy, timid, gentle, and kind, but he wrote gruesome and painful books. He saw the world as full of invisible demons, who tear apart and destroy defenseless people. He was too clear-sighted and too wise to be able to live; he was too weak to fight, he had that weakness of noble, beautiful people who are not able to do battle against the fear of misunderstandings, unkindness, or intellectual lies. Such persons know beforehand that they are powerless and go down in defeat in such a way that they shame the victor. He knew people as only people of great sensitivity are able to know them, as somebody who is alone and sees people almost prophetically, from one flash of a face. He knew the world in a deep and extraordinary manner. He was himself a deep and extraordinary world.”
― Milena Jesenska

“A tortured man but a marvellous writer, complex and yet also entirely simple. As I always say, one is never too young to be reading Kafka, and never too old to be reading him differently.”
― Panayotis Cacoyannis, The Madness of Grief