I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.

Isolation is a way to know ourselves.

Gregor’s serious wound, from which he suffered for over a month – the apple remained imbedded in his flesh as a visible souvenir since no one dared to remove it – seemed to have reminded...

If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without ascending it, the work would have been permitted.

The Expulsion from Paradise is eternal in its principal aspect: this makes it irrevocable, and our living in this world inevitable, but the eternal nature of the process has the effect that not only could...

The person I am in the company of my sisters has been entirely different from the person I am in the company of other people. Fearless, powerful, surprising, moved as I otherwise am only when...

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

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

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

One of the first signs of the beginnings of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved...

The existence of the writer is an argument against the existence of the soul, for the soul has obviously taken flight from the real ego, but not improved itself, only become a writer.

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.

This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer

The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.

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

At the same time all the houses round about promptly took part in this silence, and so did the darkness above them, reaching as far as the stars. And the footsteps of invisible passers-by, whose...

I believe that we should only read those books that bite and sting us. If a book does not rouse us with a blow then why read it?

It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.

It’s often safer to be in chains than to be free

Evil is whatever distracts.

Herr Kafka, essen Sie keine Eier.” (As one and only piece of dialog K recalls from his meeting with Rudolf Steiner – “Mr. Kafka don’t eat eggs.

What’s happened to me,’ he thought. It was no dream.

Alle menschlichen Fehler sind Ungeduld, ein vorzeitiges Abbrechen des Methodischen, ein scheinbares Einpfählen der scheinbaren Sache.

Hiding places there are innumerable, escape is only one, but possibilities of escape, again, are as many as hiding places.

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

Martyrs do not underrate the body, they allow it to be elevated on the cross. In this they are at one with their antagonists.

but that is how the guilty speak

All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else.

My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication–it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness–it is all that I have–and when the drugs and...

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

Books are a narcotic

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

Writer speaks a stench.

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

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

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.

The true way is along a rope that is not spanned high in the air, but only just above the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling than to be walked along.

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down...

They no longer wanted to entice anyone; all they wanted was to catch a glimpse for as long as possible of the reflected glory in the great eyes of Odysseus

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

If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he’ll never see anything.

Es gibt zwei menschliche Hauptsünden, aus welchen sich alle andern ableiten: Ungeduld und Lässigkeit. Wegen der Ungeduld sind sie aus dem Paradiese vertrieben worden, wegen der Lässigkeit kehren sie nicht zurück. Vielleicht aber gibt es...

I am, because my little dog knows I am.

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

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

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

But what if all the tranquility, all the comfort, all the contentment were now to come to a horrifying end?

My job is unbearable to me because it conflicts with my only desire and my only calling, which is literature. Since I am nothing but literature and can and want to be nothing else, my...