Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafkawas a German-language writer of novels and short stories who is widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism and the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include "Die Verwandlung", Der Process, and Das Schloss. The term Kafkaesque has entered the English...
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth3 July 1883
CityPrague, Czech Republic
The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.
Just think how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm.
It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.
I never imagined that so many days would ultimately make such a small life.
So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.
A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.
I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.
I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough.
I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.
The decisive moment in human evolution is perpetual. That is why the revolutionary spiritual movements that declare all former things worthless are in the right, for nothing has yet happened.
Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.
He was a tool of the boss, without brains or backbone.
It isn't necessary that you leave home. Sit at your desk and listen. Don't even listen, just wait. Don't wait, be still and alone. The whole world will offer itself to you.
Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.