Quote

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?

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
Read
Wound
Doesn
Wounds
Book
Wake
Kind
Blow
Think
Ought
Thinking
Head
Books
Reading
Stab

More quotes by Franz Kafka

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Our art is a way of being dazzled by truth: the light on the grotesquely grimacing retreating face is true, and nothing else.
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He was a tool of the boss, without brains or backbone.
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A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night.
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Writers speak stench.
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Now I can look at you in peace I don't eat you any more.
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As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.
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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.
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The various forms of despair at the various stations on the road.
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His biggest misgiving came from his concern about the loud crash that was bound to occur and would probably create, if not terror, at least anxiety behind all the doors. But that would have to be risked.
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Sometimes I think I can expiate all my past and future sins through the aching of my bones.
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So then you’re free?’ ‘Yes, I’m free,’ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.
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Celibacy and suicide are a similar levels of understanding, suicide and a martyr's death not so by any means, perhaps marriage and a martyr's death.
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One reads in order to ask questions
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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.
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There is a goal but no way what we call the way is mere wavering.
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The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon.
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We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.
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I never wish to be easily defined.
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The existence of the writer is an argument against the existence of the soul, for the soul has obviously taken flight from the real ego, but not improved itself, only become a writer.
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Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away but this opinion was all that he was permitted.
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