Franz Kafka

He is a free and secure citizen of the world, for he is not bound by any ties.

All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers, is contained in the dog.

The man in the parable is told that he cannot pass through the first door, and he waits there for years, until he dies.

Starting from a certain point, there is no return. This is the point that must be reached.

The man who has not been in danger has not been in love.

What is the good of dragging a body about which is only a burden?

Even if you are in your own four walls, you are still a prisoner.

There are two main human sins from which all the others spring: impatience and indolence.

The decisive moment of human existence is the moment when man decides to choose his own way.

One must not cheat anybody, not even the world.

The world is a monstrously large and complicated machine, and we are all its cogs.

The only way to deal with the world is to be as mad as it is.

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

The fact that you are not yet dead is proof that you are not yet alive.

The more you are able to forget, the more you are able to live.

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

Writing is a form of prayer.

I have been so lonely that I have had to be my own brother, my own sister, my own father, my own mother, my own lover, my own friend.

I am afraid of everything, my dear, even of the sky and the trees.

The world is a monstrously large and complicated machine, and I am a tiny cog in it, and I don't know what my function is.