A Friend of Kafka Quotes

“There is some mysterious strength in fools. They are deeply rooted in the primeval chaos.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“We expected a large gathering, because it is the nature of people to forget a saint while he is alive and give him all honors at his death.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“However, the courage to take a rope and hang one’s self, or jump out of a window, I do not have. Only those who are not accustomed to pain can do that.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“I had already discovered that there was no limit to how much suffering I can bear.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“My mother has a saying: ‘One is none.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“One did not need to be a believer to see the purpose in nature, the truth of so-called teleology, so taboo in science.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“There isn’t a greater pain than to be loved by a fool.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“A lion attacks a herd of zebras and kills one. The frightened zebras run for a while and then they stop and start to graze again. Do they have a choice?”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“Schopenhauer was right. It’s all that blind will to prolong the human tragedy.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“Oh, men have no compassion on themselves!”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“His stories always came to the same conclusion: everything is vanity, all philosophers are mistaken, all ideals silly and hypocritical.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“It is written that it is better to be burned in a kiln than to shame another,” my father said.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“Kafka believed in the golem, and even that the future might well bring another one.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“When I think that Kafka loved this creature, dreamed about her, I am ashamed for man and his illusions.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“That, by the way, was Kafka’s problem when it came to writing: he saw all the defects—his own and everyone else’s.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“All her troubles were caused by her madness for clothes. She simply could not think about anything else.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“One common aim united Alexander of Macedonia and Hamilcar, Genghis Khan and Charlemagne, Chmielnitzki and Napoleon, Robespierre and Lenin.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“reshayim, the wicked. It is the wicked who make history.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“Meir the eunuch clutched his naked chin where a beard should have grown.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“A real friend is a friend in need, not those who wait until your luck changes.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“I can no longer be fooled by paint and perfume.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories

“He had shown me letters he had received not only from Kafka but from Jakob Wassermann, Stefan Zweig, Romain Rolland, Ilya Ehrenburg, and Martin Buber.”
― Isaac Bashevis Singer, A Friend of Kafka and Other Stories