Merely by being born intelligent, you right away find yourself in absolute exile.

And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

He Kept recalling her lying on his bed; she reminded him of no one in his former life.

Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!

The moment Kafka attracts more attenetion than Joseph K., Kafka's posthumous death begins.

Aren't we living in a world where heedless men only desire decapitated women?

Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.