Uncleanness is so much the attribute of officials that one could almost regard them as enormous parasites...In the same way the fathers in Kafka's strange families batten on their sons, lying on top of them like giant parasites. They not only prey upon their strength, but gnaw away at the sons' right to exist. The fathers punish, but they are at the same time the accusers. The sin of which they accuse their sons seems to be a kind of original sin.
Walter BenjaminIn the fields with which we are concerned, knowledge comes only in flashes. The text is the thunder rolling long afterward.
Walter BenjaminNo poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.
Walter BenjaminDeath is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.
Walter Benjamin