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I won't give up the diary again. I must hold on here, it is the only place I can.

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
FrantiĊĦek Kafka
Kafka
Diaries
Hold
Place
Give
Must
Giving
Diary

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If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.
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What am I doing here in this endless winter?
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Two possibilities: making oneself infinitely small or being so. The second is perfection, that is to say, inactivity, the first is beginning, that is to say, action.
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I passed by the brothel as though past the house of a beloved.
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. . . The books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation-a book should serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us.
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Believing means liberating the indestructible element in oneself, or, more accurately, liberating oneself, or, more accurately, being indestructible, or, more accurately, being.
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Art flies around truth, but with the definite intention of not getting burnt. Its capacity lies in finding in the dark void a place where the beam of light can be intensely caught, without this having been perceptible before.
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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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May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.
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Utterance does not in principle mean a weakening of conviction--that would not be anything to be deplored--but a weakness of conviction.
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There are times when I am convinced I am unfit for any human relationship.
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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.
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The man in ecstasy and the man drowning - both throw up their arms. The first to signify harmony, the second to signify strife with the elements.
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If the literature we are reading does not wake us, why then do we read it? A literary work must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
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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.
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He was a tool of the boss, without brains or backbone.
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Books are a narcotic.
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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
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