Franz Kafka

Explore 5 quotes by Franz Kafka

A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

Franz Kafka

More information about this quote

Topic

Self-discovery Power of literature Books

Author

Franz Kafka

Source

Letters of Franz Kafka

Medium

Letter

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

German

Time

1904 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Kafka, Franz. Letter to Oskar Pollak. 27 Jan. 1904.

Current Citation

Kafka, Franz. Franz Kafka: Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors, translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Schocken, 1990.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Franz Kafka

The Great Wall of China

More information about this quote

Topic

Stillness Paying attention

Author

Franz Kafka

Source

The Great Wall of China

Medium

Short story

Language

German

Time

1931 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Kafka, Franz. Betrachtungen über Sünde, Leid, Hoffnung und den wahren Weg [Reflections on Sin, Pain, Hope and the True Way]. Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1931, no. 109.

When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

Franz Kafka

The Metamorphosis

Buy The Metamorphosis at Amazon Buy The Metamorphosis at Amazon
Read The Metamorphosis at Project Gutenberg

More information about this quote

Topic

Transformation Change Alienation from oneself Alienation

Author

Franz Kafka

Source

The Metamorphosis

Medium

Novel

Genre

Modernist literature

Statement Type

Opening lines

Language

German

Time

1915 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Kafka, Franz. Die Verwandlung [The Metamorphosis]. Verlag, 1915, ch. 1.

Current Citation

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis, translated by Susan Bernofsky. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, ch. 1.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us... We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

Franz Kafka

More information about this quote

Topic

Books

Author

Franz Kafka

Medium

Letter

Language

German

Time

1904 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Kafka, Franz. Letter to Oskar Pollak. 27 Jan. 1904.

Current Citation

Kafka, Franz. "To Oscar Pollack, January 27, 1904." Letters to Friends, Family and Editors, translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Schocken, 1990.

Love is to me that you are the knife which I turn within myself.

Franz Kafka

More information about this quote

Topic

Dangers of love Love

Author

Franz Kafka

Source

Letters of Franz Kafka

Medium

Letter

Language

German

Time

1920 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Original Citation

Kafka, Franz. Letter to Milena Jesenská. 14 Sept. 1920.

Current Citation

Kafka, Franz. "Letter to Milena Jesenská, 14 Sept. 1920." Letters to Milena, translated by Philip Boehm. Schocken, 2015.