No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.

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.

Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written.

Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.

Not to find one’s way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one’s way in a city, as one loses one’s way in a forest, requires some schooling.

Rather than ask, What is the attitude of a work to the relations of production of its time? I should like to ask, What is its position in them.

The good tidings which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lost in a void the very moment he opens his mouth.