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.

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

No," said the priest, "you don't need to accept everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary." "Depressing view," said K. "The lie made into the rule of the world.

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

The notion of the infinite expanse and copiousness of the cosmos is the result of the mixture, carried to the extreme limit, of laborious creation and free self-determination.

There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction.

Written kisses never arrive at their destination; the ghosts drink them up along the way.