“Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.””
Quotes by Franz Kafka
“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.””
“I am a cage, in search of a bird.””
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.””
“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.””
“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.””
Franz KafkaFranz Kafka was a German-language Jewish Czech writer born in Prague, whose works have become cornerstones of 20th-century literature. He is best known for his exploration of themes such as isolation,...