Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Kafka by David Levine

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Kafkaesque: Kaf•ka•esque Pronunciation: (käf"ku-esk'), [key] —adj. 1. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling the literary work of Franz Kafka: the Kafkaesque terror of the endless interrogations. 2. marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity: Kafkaesque bureaucracies. Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

The Absurd “You know the story of the crazy man who was fishing in a bathtub. A doctor with ideas as to psychiatric treatment asked him "if they were biting," to which he received the harsh reply: "Of course not, you fool, since this is a bathtub." That story belongs to the baroque type. But in it can be grasped quite clearly to what a degree the absurd effect is linked to an excess of logic. Kafka’s world is in truth an indescribable universe in which man allows himself the tormenting luxury of fishing in a bathtub, knowing that nothing will come of it.” --Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Franz Kafka

“The books we need are of the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation; a book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.”--Kafka Franz Kafka

From a certain point onward, there is no turning back From a certain point onward, there is no turning back. That is the point that must be reached.--Franz Kafka Franz Kafka

Of course [the cinema is] a marvelous toy Of course [the cinema is] a marvelous toy. But I cannot bear it, because perhaps I am too "optical" by nature. I am an Eye-man. But the cinema disturbs one's vision. The speed of the movements and the rapid change of images forces men to look continually from one to another. Sight does not flood one's consciousness. The cinema involves putting the eye into uniform, where before it was naked. . . . Real life is only a reflection of the dreams of poets. The strings of the lines of modern poets are endless strips of celluloid. --Franz Kafka Franz Kafka

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. --Franz Kafka Franz Kafka

There is infinite hope, but not for us. --Franz Kafka Franz Kafka

He is a free and secure citizen of this earth, for he is attached to a chain that is long enough to make all areas of the earth accessible to him, and yet only so long that nothing can pull him over the edges of the earth. At the same time, however, he is also a free and secure citizen of heaven, for he is also attached to a similarly calculated heavenly chain. Thus, if he wants to get down to earth, he is choked by the heavenly collar and chain; if he wants to get into heaven, he is choked by the earthly one. And in spite of this he has all the possibilities, and feels that it is so; indeed, he even refuses to attribute the whole thing to a mistake in the original chaining. --Franz Kafka Franz Kafka

I think I understand the fall of man better than anyone else. --Franz Kafka Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka