If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read? So that it shall make us happy? Good God, we should also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves; like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
Franz KafkaSo then youโre free?โ โYes, Iโm free,โ said Karl, and nothing seemed more worthless than his freedom.
Franz KafkaOne day, a leopard stalked into the synagogue, roaring and lashing its tail. Three weeks later, it had become part of the liturgy.
Franz KafkaThe crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. There is no doubt of that, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for heaven simply means: the impossibility of crows.
Franz KafkaThe truth is always an abyss. One must โ as in a swimming pool โ dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again โ laughing and fighting for breath โ to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.
Franz Kafka