Writing sustains me. But wouldn’t it be better to say it sustains this kind of life? Which doesn't mean life is any better when I don’t write. On the contrary, it is far worse, wholly unbearable, and inevitably ends in madness. This is, of course, only on the assumption that I am a writer even when I don’t write - which is indeed the case; and a non-writing writer is, in fact, a monster courting insanity.

In a way, I was safe writing

Human judgment of human actions is true and void , that is to say, first true and then void.... The judgment of the word is true, the judgment in itself is void.... Only he who is a party can really judge, but as a party he cannot judge. Hence it follows that there is no possibility of judgment in the world, only a glimmer of it.

A book should serve as an axe to the ice inside us.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

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.

The truth is always an abyss.