Franz Kafka Quotes

“آدم‌ها اغلب خود را با آزادی فریب می‌دهند. همانطور که آزادی از والاترین حس‌ها به شمار می‌آید، فریبِ حاصل از آن هم جزو والاترین فریب‌هاست.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“And there shouldn’t be anything to stop you carrying on with your usual life.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“My dear parents,” said the sister banging her hand on the table by way of an introduction, “things cannot go on any longer in this way. Maybe if you don’t understand that, well, I do. I will not utter my brother’s name in front of this monster, and thus I say only that we must try to get rid of it. We have tried what is humanly possible to take care of it and to be patient. I believe that no one can criticize us in the slightest.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“O God,” he thought, “what a demanding job I’ve chosen! Day in, day out on the road. The stresses of trade are much greater than the work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I have to deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart. To hell with it all!”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“K. eventually had to give up asking if he did not want to be led all round from floor to floor in this way. He regretted his initial plan, which had at first seemed so practical to him. As he reached the fifth floor, he decided to give up the search, took his leave of a friendly, young worker who wanted to lead him on still further and went down the stairs. But then the thought of how much time he was wasting made him cross, he went back again and knocked at the first door on the fifth floor. The first thing he saw in the small room was a large clock on the wall which already showed ten o’clock.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“The first thing he saw in the small room was a large clock on the wall which already showed ten o’clock.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“But now you must give me your hand, an agreement of this sort needs to be confirmed with a handshake.” Will she shake hands with me?”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“Now, her bedside table had been pulled into the middle of the room to be used as a desk for these proceedings, and the supervisor sat behind it.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“For there stood a bowl filled with sweetened milk, in which swam tiny pieces of white bread. He almost laughed with joy, for he now had a much greater hunger than in the morning, and he immediately dipped his head almost up to and over his eyes down into the milk. But he soon drew it back again in disappointment, not just because it was difficult for him to eat on account of his delicate left side (he could eat only if his entire panting body worked in a coordinated way), but also because the milk, which otherwise was his favorite drink and which his sister had certainly placed there for that reason, did not appeal to him at all.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“If I didn’t hold back for my parents’ sake, I would’ve quit ages ago.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka - Collected Works

“Uncleanliness, however, is but one of the drawbacks of dogs. Dogs also fall ill and no one really understands dogs’ diseases. Then the animal sits in a corner or limps about, whimpers, coughs, chokes from some pain; one wraps it in a rug, whistles a little melody, offers it milk – in short, one nurses it in the hope that this, as indeed is possible, is a passing sickness while it may be a serious, disgusting, and contagious disease. And even if the dog remains healthy, one day it will grow old, one won’t have the heart to get rid of the faithful animal in time, and then comes the moment when one’s own age peers out at one from the dog’s oozing eyes. Then one has to cope with the half-blind, weak-lunged animal all but immobile with fat, and in this way pay dearly for the pleasures the dog once had given. Much as Blumfeld would like to have a dog at this moment, he would rather go on climbing the stairs alone for another thirty years than be burdened later on by such an old dog which, sighing louder than he, would drag itself up, step by step.”
― Franz Kafka, Franz Kafka: Collected Works

“What’s happened to me,” he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a human being, only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known walls. Above the table, on which an unpacked collection of sample cloth goods was spread out (Samsa was a traveling salesman) hung the picture which he had cut out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty gilt frame. It was a picture of a woman with a fur hat and a fur boa. She sat erect there, lifting up in the direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearm disappeared.”
― Franz Kafka, Collected Works