May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

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

Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.

Who has the gift to recognize beauty, will not live long

You are free and that is why you are lost

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.

The indestructible is one: it is each individual human being and, at the same time, it is common to all, hence the incomparably indivisible union that exists between human beings.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

What have I in common with Jews? I have hardly anything in common with myself

All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in the dog

The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.

Writing is a sweet, wonderful reward

Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

If the French were German in their essence, then how the Germans would admire them!

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

If I could drown in sleep as I drown in fear I would be no longer alive.

Writers speak stench.

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.

The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

É bom quando nossa consciência sofre grandes ferimentos, pois isso a torna mais sensível a cada estímulo. Penso que devemos ler apenas livros que nos ferem, que nos afligem. Se o livro que estamos lendo não nos desperta como um soco no cr nio, por que perder tempo lendo-o? Para que ele nos torne felizes,...

I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be on one’s guard against them.

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.

She is so distinct to me, it’s as though I had run my hands all over her.

In a way, I was safe writing

Every word first looks around in every direction before letting itself be written down by me.

This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me.

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.

My ”fear”… is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.

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,...

It would have been so pointless to kill himself that, even if he had wanted to, the pointlessness would have made him unable.

Kill me, or you are a murderer.

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.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.

I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and...

No people sing with such pure voices as those that live in deepest hell; what we take for the song of angels is their song.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

Isn ‘ t it obvious that a person would leave from where he is hated so much? The heroism of staying in such a place is that of a roach which won ‘ t be exterminated from the bathroom.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?