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
There are times when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.
You are so vulnerably haunting. Your eeriness is terrifyingly irresistible.
There will be no proof that I ever was a writer.
My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.
One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.
Going to pieces. To go to pieces so pointlessly and unnecessarily.
Because of impatience we were driven out [of Paradise]; because of impatience we cannot return.
The tremendous world I have inside my head. But how free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I am here, that is quite clear to me.
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
The truth is always an abyss. One must — as in a swimming pool — dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again — laughing and fighting for breath — to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.
All language is but a poor translation.
All that you are seeking is also seeking you
I am free and that is why I am lost.
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty.