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If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?

Franz Kafka

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Franz Kafka
Age: 41 †
Born: 1883
Born: July 3
Died: 1924
Died: July 3
Aphorist
Claims Adjuster
Diarist
Fabulist
Lawyer
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Translator
Writer
Praha
František Kafka
Kafka
Doe
Hammering
Book
Skull
Fist
Skulls
Fists
Wake
Reading
Read

More quotes by Franz Kafka

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There are two main human sins from which all the others derive: impatience and indolence. It was because of impatience that they were expelled from Paradise it is because of indolence that they do not return. Yet perhaps there is only one major sin: impatience. Because of impatience they were expelled, because of impatience they do not return.
Franz Kafka
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The limited circle is pure.
Franz Kafka
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Leop­ards break in­to the tem­ple and drink all the sac­ri­fi­cial ves­sels dry it keeps hap­pen­ing in the end, it can be cal­cu­lat­ed in ad­vance and is in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the rit­ual.
Franz Kafka
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Writing [is] a form of prayer.
Franz Kafka
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I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more
Franz Kafka
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This morning, for the first time in a long time, the joy again of imagining a knife twisted in my heart.
Franz Kafka
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If you find someone who makes you smile, who checks up on you often to see if you're okay. Who watches out or you and wants the best for you. Who loves and respects you. Don't let them go. People like that are hard to find.
Franz Kafka
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Even the merest gesture is holy if it is filled with faith.
Franz Kafka
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Sometimes I'd like to stuff all Jews (myself included) into the drawer of a laundry basket. then open it to see if they've suffocated
Franz Kafka
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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.
Franz Kafka
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German is my mother tongue and as such more natural to me, but I consider Czech much more affectionate, which is why your letter removes several uncertainties I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so resolute, it’s almost like a meeting.
Franz Kafka
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The more horses you yoke the quicker everything will go - not the rending of the block from its foundation, which is impossible, but the snapping of the traces and with that the gay and empty journey.
Franz Kafka
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The observer of the soul cannot penetrate into the soul, but there doubtless is a margin where he comes into contact with it. Recognition of this contact is the fact that even the soul does not know of itself. Hence it must remain unknown. That would be sad only if there were anything apart from the soul, but there is nothing else.
Franz Kafka
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One reads in order to ask questions
Franz Kafka
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He was a tool of the boss, without brains or backbone.
Franz Kafka
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He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.
Franz Kafka
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As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
Franz Kafka
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There will be no proof that I ever was a writer.
Franz Kafka
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No matter how much you keep encouraging someone who is blindfolded to stare through the cloth, he still won’t see a thing..
Franz Kafka
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Psychology is the description of the reflection of the terrestial world in the heavenly plane, or, more correctly, the description of a reflection such as we, soaked as we are in our terrestial nature, imagine it, for no reflection actually occurs, only we see earth wherever we turn.
Franz Kafka