Franz Kafka

Literature is a form of prayer.

The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.

The books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves.

I am nothing but literature, and can and want to be nothing else.

Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from 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.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

I stand in the middle of the room and stare at the bed. It is a white bed with a white frame. I cannot sleep in it.

The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be deferred.

I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable.

Dearest Father, you never had a real relationship with anyone among us children.

Your life is a lie, and you know it.

I asked for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

Burn all my manuscripts after my death.

The truth is always an abyss. One must be careful in approaching it, if one is not to fall in.

The man who does not understand that he is a prisoner cannot be freed.

Don't bend; don't water it; don't walk on it. Let the living flower be, and do not uproot it.

You are free, and that is why you are lost.