Franz Kafka · 224 pages
Rating: (43K votes)
“What am I doing here in this endless winter?”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“And so gentlemen, I learned. Oh, if you have to learn, you learn; if you’re desperate for a way out, you learn; you learn pitilessly. You stand over yourself with a whip in your hand; if there’s the least resistance, you lash yourself.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“Then birds flew up like a shower of sparks, I followed them with my eyes and saw how they rose in a single breath, until they seemed no longer to be rising but I to be falling...”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“Away in the distance, a train appeared behind the trees, all its compartments were lit, the windows were sure to be open. One of us started singing a ballad, but we all wanted to sing. We sang far quicker than the speed of the train, we swung our arms because our voices weren't enough, our voices got into a tangle where we felt happy. If you mix your voice with others' voices, you feel as though you're caught on a hook. (trans. Michael Hofmann)”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“[He] used to be so insignificant that one literally felt alone in his presence.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“WHEN Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“It is to us artisans and tradesmen that the salvation of the fatherland is entrusted; but we are not equal to such a task; never, indeed, have we claimed that we were capable of performing it. It is a misunderstanding; and it is proving our ruin.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“The man from the country has not expected such difficulties; the law, he thinks, should be accessible to everyone and at all times; but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose, his long, sparse, black Tartar beard, he decides that it is better, after all, to wait until he receives permission to enter.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“It seems hard to remain a bachelor...to model your appearance and behaviour on one or two bachelors remembered from your youth.
That is how it will be, only that in reality it will be you yourself standing there, today and later, with a body and a real head, and so with a brow too, to strike with your hand.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“Nobody reaches through here, least of all with a message from one who is dead. You, however, sit at your window and dream of the message when evening comes.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“and if you run off down the long streets in the way you are doing — then for this evening, you have broken utterly from your family, who fade away into insubstantiality, while you yourself, absolutely solid, black and clear-cut, slapping your thighs, rise and
assume your true form.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“Selfishness is one of the surest signs of profound unhappiness.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
“...we don't have to fly straight into the sun, but we do need to creep into some tidy little place on earth where the sun sometime shines and where we can find a little warmth for ourselves.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
Franz Kafka
Born place: in Prague, Austria-Hungary
Born date July 3, 1883
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“You destroy me."
"Juliette," he says and he mouths the name, barely speaking at all, and he's pouring molten lava into my limbs and I never even knew I could melt straight to death.
"I want you," he says. He says "I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you." He says it like it's a lit cigarette lodged in his throat, like he wants to dip me in warm honey and he says "It's never been a secret. I've never tried to hide that from you. I've never pretended I wanted anything less."
"You-you said you wanted f-friendship-"
"Yes," he says, he swallows, "I did. I do. I do want to be your friend. He nods and I register the slight movement in the air between us. "I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend," he says. "The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body, Juliette-"
"No," I gasp. "Don't-don't s-say that-"
"I want to know where to touch you," he says. "I want to know how to touch you. I want to know how to convince you to design a smile just for me." I feel his chest rising, falling, up and down and up and down and "Yes," he says. "I do want to be your friend." He says "I want to be your best friend in the entire world."
"I want so many things," he whispers. "I want your mind. Your strength. I want to be worth your time." His fingers graze the hem of my top and he says "I want this up." He tugs on the waist of my pants and says "I want these down." He touches the tips of his fingers to the sides of my body and says, "I want to feel your skin on fire. I want to feel your heart racing next to mine and I want to know it's racing because of me, because you want me. Because you never," he says, he breathes, "never want me to stop. I want every second. Every inch of you. I want all of it."
And I drop dead, all over the floor.
"Juliette."
I can't understand why I can still hear him speaking because I'm dead, I'm already dead, I've died over and over and over again.
He swallows, hard, his chest heaving, his words a breathless, shaky whisper when he says "I'm so-I'm so desperately in love with you-”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Ne m'échappe pas
“It is not the logical part of thinking that changes emotions but the perceptual part. If we see something differently, our emotions may alter with the altered perception. (p64)”
― Edward de Bono, quote from Six Thinking Hats
“Men started praying to you, begging for a taste. That legend of yours spiraled out of control. You gave the people hope. They were told you were all they ever needed.”
― James W. Bodden, quote from The Red Light Princess
“Your own forefathers killed to have and hold the land where you were born, and sought to extinguish the memories and souls of those that were slain. What of those who prayed in the mountains of Appalachia for thousands of years? That to me is an abomination, although it is the way of men.”
― Bruce Lee Bond, quote from The Broken Coast
“By the moons, you make me nervously,” Riptide said. One”
― Tui T. Sutherland, quote from The Lost Heir
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