Quotes

Women are traps which lie in wait for men everywhere, in order to drag them down into the Finite.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

[Castle] Only a total stranger could ask such a question. Are there control agencies? There are only control agencies! Of course they aren't meant to find errors, in the vulgar sense of that term, since no errors occur, and even if an error does occur, as in your case, who can finally say that it is an error?

[Trial] It's characteristic of this judicial system that a man is condemned not only when he's innocent but also in ignorance.

[Amerika] It's impossible to defend oneself in the absence of goodwill.

[Trial] K. didn't thumb through that book any more, but just threw open the next one at its title page, it was a novel with the title, "What Grete Suffered from her Husband, Hans". "So this is the sort of law book they study here," said K., "this is the sort of person sitting in judgment over me."

[Trial] How are we to avoid those in office becoming deeply corrupt when everything is devoid of meaning?

[Trial] People under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.

[Castle] Surveyor, in your thoughts you may be reproaching Sordini for not having been prompted by my claim to make inquiries about the matter in other departments. But that would have been wrong, and I want this man cleared of all blame in your thoughts. One of the operating principles of authorities is that the possibility of error is simply not taken into account. This principle is justified by the excellence of the entire organization and is also necessary if matters are to be discharged with the utmost rapidity. So Sordini couldn't inquire in other departments, besides those departments wouldn't have answered, since they would have noticed right away that he was investigating the possibility of an error.

[The Country Doctor] They had called me out for nothing. I'm used to it.

[The Country Doctor] "Do you know," I hear someone saying in my ear, "my confidence in you is very small. You were shaken out from somewhere. You don't come on your own feet. Instead of helping, you give me less room on my deathbed. The best thing would be if I scratch your eyes out." "Right," I say, "it's a disgrace. But now I'm a doctor. What am I supposed to do? Believe me, things are not easy for me either." "Should I be satisfied with this excuse? Alas, I'll probably have to be. I always have to make do. I came into the world with a beautiful wound; that was all I was furnished with." "Young friend," I say, "your mistake is that you have no perspective. I've already been in all the sick rooms, far and wide, and I tell you your wound is not so bad. Made in a tight corner with two blows from an axe. Many people offer their side and hardly hear the axe in the forest, to say nothing of the fact that it's coming closer to them." "Is that really so, or are you deceiving me in my fever?" "It is truly so. Take the word of honour of a medical doctor." He took my word and grew still. But now it was time to think about my escape.

[The Country Doctor] Poor young man, there is no helping you. I have found out your great wound. You are dying from this flower on your side. The family is happy; they see me doing something. The sister says that to the mother, the mother tells the father, the father tells a few guests who are coming in on tip toe through the moonlight of the open door, balancing themselves with outstretched arms. "Will you save me?" whispers the young man, sobbing, quite blinded by the life inside his wound. That's how people are in my region. Always demanding the impossible from the doctor. They have lost the old faith. The priest sits at home and tears his religious robes to pieces, one after the other. But the doctor is supposed to achieve everything with his delicate surgeon's hand. Well, it's what they like to think. I have not offered myself. If they use me for sacred purposes, I let that happen to me as well.

A writer who does not write is a monster courting insanity.

[Trial] Someone must have been telling stories about Joseph K, because one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.

Evil is whatever distracts.

All revolutions evaporate leaving only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

The Meaning of Life is that it stops.

What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense...

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 what he sees among the ruins.

The Messiah will arrive when he is no longer needed.

Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment.

Self-control is something for which I do not strive. Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

Sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty.

I no longer know if I want to drown myself in Love, vodka or the sea.

We live in an age so possessed by demons that soon it will only possible to do good and justice secretly, as if it were a crime.

Fear is misfortune, therefore courage is not happiness, but fearlessness.

Don't spend time looking for an obstacle. Maybe there isn't one.

I think you should only read books that bite and sting you. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a punch to the skull, then why are we reading the book? A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Let the future sleep as it deserves. If you wake them up prematurely, you get a sleepy presence.

Also, perhaps it is not actually love when I say that you are the dearest thing to me; Love is that you are the knife with which I dig within myself.

Ah, said the mouse, the world is getting narrower every day. At first it was so wide that I was afraid, I kept running and was happy that I finally saw walls in the distance to the right and left, but these long walls rush towards each other so quickly that I'm already in the last room, and there The trap I'm walking into is in the corner. You just have to change the direction of walking, said the cat and ate it.

All talk is pointless if trust is lacking.

Before I didn't understand why I didn't get an answer to my question, now I don't understand how I thought I could ask. But I didn't believe it at all, I just asked.

When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know about the pain that is in me and what do I know about yours? And if I were to prostrate myself before you and cry and talk, what more would you know about me than about hell if someone told you it was hot and terrible. For that reason alone, we as humans should stand before one another as reverently, as thoughtfully, as lovingly as before the entrance to hell.

People become evil and guilty because they speak and act without foreseeing the consequences of their words and actions.