Quotessence
Home / Authors / Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsLiteratureWorldLettersKafkaLoveWritingMenPeopleWayDoeLifeFranz KafkaKnowsThinkingI CanKafkaesqueLetters To MilenaBookHumans

Famous Franz Kafka Quotes

“You once said that you would like to sit beside me while I write. Listen, in that case I could not write at all. For writing means revealing oneself to excess; that utmost of self-revelation and surrender, in which a human being, when involved with others, would feel he was losing himself, and from which, therefore, he will always shrink as long as he is in his right mind-- for everyone wants to live as long as he is alive-- even the degree of self-revelation and surrender is not enough for writing. Writing that springs from the surface of existence-- when there is no other way and deeper wells have dried up-- is nothing, and collapses the moment a truer emotion makes the surface shake. That is why one can never be alone enough when one writes, why there can never be enough silence around one when one writes, why even night is not night enough.”

WritingSolitude
Author:Franz Kafka
Create image

“Writing sustains me. But wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that it sustains this kind of life? Which does not, of course, mean that my life is any better when I don’t write. On the contrary, at such times it is far worse, wholly unbearable, and inevitably ends in madness. This is, of course, only on the assumption that I am a writer even when I don’t write — which is indeed the case; and a non-writing writer is, in fact, a monster courting insanity.”

WritingWriters On WritingInspirational Writing
Author:Franz Kafka
Create image

“13 September. Again barely two pages. At first I thought my sorrow over the Austrian defeats and my anxiety for the future (anxiety that appears ridiculous to me at bottom, and base too) would prevent me from doing any writing. But that wasn’t it, it was only an apathy that forever comes back and forever has to be put down again. There is time enough for sorrow when I am not writing. The thoughts provoked in me by the war resemble my old worries over F. in the tormenting way in which they devour me from every direction. I can’t endure worry, and perhaps have been created expressly in order to die of it. When I shall have grown weak enough –it won’t take very long –the most trifling worry will perhaps suffice to rout me. In this prospect I can also see a possibility of postponing the disaster as long as possible.”

WritingInspirationCreativityWorryAnxietyAuthorApathyWriters Block
Book:Diaries, 1910-1923
Create image

“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.”

InspirationalWritingTryingBelieveSoulTruthWaterFashionHonestyIntenseObsessionLogicalEpicWriting AdviceEditsWriting By WritersGreat WritingTruth And HonestyTruth Honesty
Book:The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories
Create image

“If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read? So that it shall make us happy? Good God, we should also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves; like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.”

IfsNeedsShouldWritingDoeBookHappinessReadingLove IsBreakSeaSuicideFortuneIllAwakeningIceDistressFrozenFistsSkullsGood God
Author:Franz Kafka
Create image

“Writing sustains me. But wouldn’t it be better to say it sustains this kind of life? Which doesn't mean life is any better when I don’t write. On the contrary, it is far worse, wholly unbearable, and inevitably ends in madness. This is, of course, only on the assumption that I am a writer even when I don’t write - which is indeed the case; and a non-writing writer is, in fact, a monster courting insanity.”

WritingKindMeanEndsFactsLife IsCoursesCasesMadnessContraryMonstersInsanityAssumptionUnbearableMeaning Life
Author:Franz Kafka
Create image