“On Sundays Kafka goes for walks by himself, without any objective, without thinking. He says, ‘Every day I wish myself off the earth. There is nothing wrong with me except myself.’”

— from a note by Max Brod, early 1911 (via mirroir)

(Source: hypocrite-lecteur)

“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.”

— Franz Kafka  (via caustica)

(Source: nirvikalpa)

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

— Franz Kafka (via pavorst)

“He was shy, timid, gentle, and kind, but he wrote gruesome and painful books. He saw the world as full of invisible demons, who tear apart and destroy defenseless people. He was too clear-sighted and too wise to be able to live; he was too weak to fight, he had that weakness of noble, beautiful people who are not able to do battle against the fear of misunderstandings, unkindness, or intellectual lies. Such persons know beforehand that they are powerless and go down in defeat in such a way that they shame the victor. He knew people as only people of great sensitivity are able to know them, as somebody who is alone and sees people almost prophetically, from one flash of a face. He knew the world in a deep and extraordinary manner. He was himself a deep and extraordinary world.”

— Milená Jesenská (1896 - 1944), from her obituary to Franz Kafka.   (via lastwaltzinvienna)

(Source: wine-loving-vagabond)