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.

Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous bug.

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.

The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.