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I believe that we should read only those books that bite and sting us. If a book we are reading does not rouse us with a blow to the head, then why 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
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Writer
Praha
FrantiĊĦek Kafka
Kafka
Reading
Read
Rouse
Doe
Sting
Book
Bite
Believe
Bites
Blow
Head
Books

More quotes by Franz Kafka

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People who walk across dark bridges, past saints, with dim, small lights. Clouds which move across gray skies past churches with towers darkened in the dusk. One who leans against granite railing gazing into the evening waters, His hands resting on old stones.
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The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.
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Writer speaks a stench.
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One has just been sent out as a biblical dove, has found nothing green, and slips back into the darkness of the Ark
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My doubts stand in a circle around every word, I see them before I see the word, but what then! I do not see the word at all, I invent it.
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If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.
Franz Kafka
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it was like this. the brain could no longer bear the worries and pains that were imposed on it. it said: i'm giving up but if there is anyone else here who is interested in preserving the whole, let him assume part of my burden and it will be alright for a bit.
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No, said the priest, you don't need to accept everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary. Depressing view, said K. The lie made into the rule of the world.
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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.
Franz Kafka
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The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.
Franz Kafka
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It is strange how little sharpsightedness women possess they only notice whether they please, then whether they arouse pity, and finally, whether you look for compassion from them. That is all come to think of it, it may even be enough, generally speaking.
Franz Kafka
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If this is what you came for, then I didn't send for you. Kafka (note to himself in journal)
Franz Kafka
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I am a retiring, silent, unsociable, and discontent person.
Franz Kafka
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A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.
Franz Kafka
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From the true antagonist illimitable courage is transmitted to you.
Franz Kafka
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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.
Franz Kafka
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The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speakes he lies.
Franz Kafka
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We need the 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 inside us.
Franz Kafka
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There is a down-and-outness under true knowledge and a childlike happy arising from it.
Franz Kafka
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I do not see the world at all I invent it.
Franz Kafka