Franz Kafka Quotes

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

~ Franz Kafka

Was he a beast if music could move him so?

~ Franz Kafka

Today one may pluck out one's very heart and not find it.

~ Franz Kafka

my heart no longer beats but is a tugging muscle

~ Franz Kafka

Concerning this a man once said:Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parablesyou yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares.Another said: I bet that is also a parable.The first said: You have won.The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.The first said: No, in reality; in parable you have lost.

~ Franz Kafka

The person I am in the company of my sisters has been entirely different from the person I am in the company of other people. Fearless, powerful, surprising, moved as I otherwise am only when I write.

~ Franz Kafka

The limited circle is pure.

~ Franz Kafka

However, Gregor had become much calmer. All right, people did not understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than previously, perhaps because had gotten used to them

~ Franz Kafka

Shoulder to shoulder, a coordinated movement of the people, their blood no longer confined in the limited circulation of the body but rolling sweetly and yet still returning through the infinite extent of China.

~ Franz Kafka

My job is unbearable to me because it conflicts with my only desire and my only calling, which is literature. Since I am nothing but literature and can and want to be nothing else, my job will never take possession of me, it may, however, shatter me completely, and this is by no means a remote possibility.

~ Franz Kafka

It is as if I were made of stone, as if I were my own tombstone, there is no loophole for doubt or for faith, for love or repugnance, for courage or anxiety, in particular or in general, only a vague hope lives on, but no better than the inscriptions on tombstones.

~ Franz Kafka

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.

~ Franz Kafka

At the same time all the houses round about promptly took part in this silence, and so did the darkness above them, reaching as far as the stars. And the footsteps of invisible passers-by, whose course I had no wish to guess at, the wind that kept on driving against the other side of the street, the gramophone singing behind closed windows in some room - they made themselves heard in this silence, as if they had owned it for ever and ever.

~ Franz Kafka

So if you find nothing in the corridors open the doors, and if you find nothing behind these doors there are more floors, and if you find nothing up there, don’t worry, just leap up another flight of stairs. As long as you don’t stop climbing, the stairs won’t end, under your climbing feet they will go on growing upwards

~ Franz Kafka

My health is only just good enough for myself alone, not good enough for marriage, let alone fatherhood. Yet when I read your letter, I feel I could overlook even what cannot possibly be overlooked.

~ Franz Kafka

I have no memory for things I have learned, nor things I have read, nor things experienced or heard, neither for people nor events; I feel that I have experienced nothing, learned nothing, that I actually know less than the average schoolboy, and that what I do know is superficial, and that every second question is beyond me. I am incapable of thinking deliberately; my thoughts run into a wall. I can grasp the essence of things in isolation, but I am quite incapable of coherent, unbroken thinking. I can’t even tell a story properly; in fact, I can scarcely talk.

~ Franz Kafka

It is entirely conceivable that life's splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from our view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic, which does not create but summonsFranz Kafka, 18 October 1921Es ist sehr gut denkbar, dass die Herrlichkeit des Lebes um jeden und immer in ihrer ganzen Fülle bereitliegt, aber verhängt, in der Tiefe, unsichtbar, sehr weit. Aber sie liegt dort, nicht feindselig, nicht widerwillig, nicht taub. Ruft man sie mit dem richtigen Wort, beim richtigen Namen, dann kommt sie. Das ist das Wesen der Zauberei, die nicht schafft, sondern ruft.Kafkas Tagebücher,18 Oktober 1921

~ 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

[He] used to be so insignificant that one literally felt alone in his presence.

~ Franz Kafka

Human nature, essentially changeable, unstable as the dust, can endure no restraint; if it binds itself it soon begins to tear madly at its bonds, until it renders everything asunder, the wall, and the bonds and its very self.

~ Franz Kafka

I am a typical example of Western Jew. This means I don't have a moment of peace, that nothing has come easily to me, not just the present and the future, but even the past, that thing that each man receives as his birth-right: even that I have to conquer, and perhaps that is the hardest task.

~ Franz Kafka

It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.

~ Franz Kafka

During last night’s insomnia, as these thoughts came and went between my aching temples, I realised once again, what I had almost forgotten in this recent period of relative calm, that I tread a terribly tenuous, indeed almost non-existent soil spread over a pit full of shadows, whence the powers of darkness emerge at will to destroy my life…

~ Franz Kafka

Evil is the starry sky of the Good.

~ Franz Kafka

Fear of night. Fear of not night.

~ Franz Kafka

German is my mother tongue and as such more natural to me, but I consider Czech much more affectionate, which is why your letter removes several uncertainties; I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so resolute, it’s almost like a meeting.

~ Franz Kafka

He has the feeling that merely by being alive he is blocking his own way. From this sense of hindrance, in turn, he deduces the proof that he is alive.

~ Franz Kafka

sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless manthe most guilty.

~ Franz Kafka

Oh well, memories, said I. Yes, even remembering in itself is sad, yet how much more its object! Don't let yourself in for things like that, it's not for you and not for me. It only weakens one's present position without strengthening the former one - nothing is more obvious - quite apart from the fact that the former one doesn't need strengthening.

~ Franz Kafka

If you have food in your jaws you have solved all questions for the time being.

~ Franz Kafka

You misinterpret everything, even the silence.

~ Franz Kafka

Did he really want this warm room of his, so comfortably fitted with old family furniture, to be transformed into a cave, in which, no doubt, he would be free to crawl about unimpeded in all directions, but only at the price of rapidly and completely forgetting his human past at the same time?

~ Franz Kafka

It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves.

~ Franz Kafka

Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment.

~ Franz Kafka

The Expulsion from Paradise is eternal in its principal aspect: this makes it irrevocable, and our living in this world inevitable, but the eternal nature of the process has the effect that not only could we remain forever in Paradise, but that we are currently there, whether we know it or not.

~ Franz Kafka

The existence of the writer is an argument against the existence of the soul, for the soul has obviously taken flight from the real ego, but not improved itself, only become a writer.

~ Franz Kafka

She is so distinct to me, it's as though I had run my hands all over her.

~ Franz Kafka

But all remains unchanged.

~ Franz Kafka

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.

~ Franz Kafka

I look a girl in the eye and it was a very long love story with thunder and kisses and lightning. I live fast.

~ Franz Kafka