True translation is transparent: it does not obscure the original, does not stand in its light, but rather allows pure language, as if strengthened by its own medium, to shine even more fully on the original.

Any translation which intends to perform a transmitting function cannot transmit anything but information-hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations.

Only he who can view his own past as an abortion sprung from compulsion and need can use it to full advantage in the present.

Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

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.

The work of memory collapses time.

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.