Quotes from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones. Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I miss you deeply, unfathomably, senselessly, terribly.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“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.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“Written kisses don't reach their destination, rather they are drunk on the way by the ghosts.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“In a way, you are poetry material; You are full of cloudy subtleties I am willing to spend a lifetime figuring out. Words burst in your essence and you carry their dust in the pores of your ethereal individuality.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“Yours

(now I'm even losing my name - it was getting shorter and shorter all the time and is now: Yours)”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“Do you know, darling? When you became involved with others you quite possibly stepped down a level or two, but If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“أنا قذر يا ميلينا، قذر بلا حدود، لذلك أصرخ كثيراً بشأن الطهارة”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“When one is alone, imperfection must be endured every minute of the day; a couple, however, does not have to put up with it. Aren’t our eyes made to be torn out, and our hearts for the same purpose? At the same time it’s really not that bad; that’s an exaggeration and a lie, everything is exaggeration, the only truth is longing. But even the truth of longing is not so much its own truth; it’s really an expression for everything else, which is a lie. This sounds crazy and distorted, but it’s true. Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most - you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love. This, my dear, is love.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I am dirty, Milena, endlessly dirty, that is why I make such a fuss about cleanliness. None sing as purely as those in deepest hell; it is their singing we take for the singing of angels.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man
the most guilty.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“Sometimes I have the feeling that we're in one room with two opposite doors and each of us holds the handle of one door, one of us flicks an eyelash and the other is already behind his door, and now the first one has but to utter a word ad immediately the second one has closed his door behind him and can no longer be seen. He's sure to open the door again for it's a room which perhaps one cannot leave. If only the first one were not precisely like the second, if he were calm, if he would only pretend not to look at the other, if he slowly set the room in order as though it were a room like any other; but instead he does exactly the same as the other at his door, sometimes even both are behind the doors and the the beautiful room is empty.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I’m thinking only of my illness and my health, though both, the first as well as the second, are you.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I am always trying to convey something that can’t be conveyed, to explain something which is inexplicable, to tell about something I have in my bones, something which can be expressed only in the bones.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“For myself I am too heavy, and for you too light.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I’m doing badly, I’m doing well, whichever you prefer.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“If I could drown in sleep as I drown in fear I would be no longer alive.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I can't think of anything to write about, I'm just walking around here between the lines, under the light of your eyes, in the breadth of your mouth as in a beautiful happy day, which remains beautiful and happy, even when the head is sick and tired.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“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.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I can’t feel a thing; All mournful petal storms are dancing inside the very private spring of my head.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“Nor is it perhaps really love when I say that for me you are the most beloved; In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“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, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“It seems to be a fact that man, tortured by his demons, avenges himself blindly on his fellow-man.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“And don't demand any sincerity from me, Milena. No one can demand it from me more than I myself and yet many things elude me, I'm sure, perhaps everything eludes me.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“Milena - what a rich heavy name, almost too full to be lifted, and in the beginning I didn't like it much, it seemed to me a Greek or Roman gone astray in Bohemia, violated by Czech, cheated of its accent, and yet in colour and form it is marvellously a woman, a woman whom one carries in one's arms out of the world, and out of the fire, I don't know which, and she presses herself willingly and trustingly into your arms.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“كتابة الرسائل .. تعني أن تعري نفسكَ أمام الأشباح ، و هو شيء لطالما كانوا ينتظرونه بفارغ الصبر. كتابة القُبل فيها لا يعني أنها ستصل إلى مكانها المقصود ، بينما على العكس ، يتخطفها الأشباح على طول الطريق."

(كافكا إلى ميلينا)”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

“I'm on such a dangerous road, Milena. You're standing firmly near a tree, young, beautiful, your eyes subduing with their radiance the suffering world.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Letters to Milena: Expanded and Revised in a New Translation

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“He came cripping slowly back up the driveway - when an African remembrance flashed into his mind, and near the front of the house he bent down and started peering around. Determining the clearest prints that Kizzy's bare feet had left in the dust, scooping up the double handful containing those footprints, he went rushing toward the cabin: The ancient forefathers said that precious dust kept in some safe place would insure Kizzy's return to where she made the footprints. He burst through the cabin's open door, his eyes sweeping the room and falling upon his gourd on a shelf containing his pebbles. Springing over there, in the instant before opening his cupped hands to drop in the dirt, suddenly he knew the truth: His Kizzy was gone; she would not return. He would never see his Kizzy again. His face contorting, Kunta flung his dust toward the cabin's roof. Tears bursting, from his eyes, snatching his heavy gourd up high over his head, his mouth wide in a soundless scream, he hurled the gourd down with all his strength, and it shattered against the packed-Earth floor, his 662 pebbles representing each month of his 55 rains flying out, ricocheting wildly in all directions.”
― Alex Haley, quote from Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“Oh, I think not,” Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. “Power is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”
“It has crossed my mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”
“And yet he is no one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.”
“That piece of steel is the power of life and death.”
“Just so… yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, who do we pretend our kings hold the power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?”
“Because these child kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.”
“Then these other swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung the sword? Or… another?”
Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?”
Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
“So power is a mummer’s trick?”
“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”
Tyrion smiled. “Lord Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I’d feel sad about it.”
“I will take that as high praise.”
― George R.R. Martin, quote from A Clash of Kings

“After that summer, after being friends with Won-a-nee and her young, I never killed another otter. I had an otter cape for my shoulders, which I used until it wore out, but never again did I make a new one. Nor did I ever kill another cormorant for its beautiful feathers, though they have long, think necks and make ugly sounds when they talk to each other. Nor did I kill seals for their sinews, using instead kelp to bind the things that needed it. Nor did I kill another wild dog, nor did I try to speak another sea elephant.
Ulape would have laughed at me, and other would have laughed, too -- my father most of all. Yet this is the way I felt about the animals who had become my friends and those who were not, bu in time could be. If Ulape and my father had come back and laughed, and all the other had come back and laughed, still I would have felt the same way, for animals and birds are like people, too, though they do no talk the same or do the same things. Without them the earth would be an unhappy place.”
― Scott O'Dell, quote from Island of the Blue Dolphins

“My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land

“He was just a coward and that was the worst luck any many could have.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls

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