Franz Kafka

Evil is whatever distracts.

You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.

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

Writing is a deeper sleep than death; even while dying, one continues to write.

My 'fear of being alone' is not as great as you think; I have a very lively sense of companionship.

The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only one day after his arrival; he will not come on the last day, but on the very last.

Sunk in myself, among my household gods, I live in a twilight where everything swims before my eyes.

I am not well; I could have built the Pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason.

The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other.

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, then why then do we read it?

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.

In man's struggle against the world, bet on the world.

The animal wrests from us the best part of our life and gives it back to us as a precious gift.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

What do I have instead of God? Nothing. But that nothing fills my whole mind.

I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.

The present is a very short time; it is now that we are alive.

One tells as many lies as one wants, but the truth has only one form: to be.

I am separate from everything.