We are sinful not merely because we have eaten of the tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not eaten of the Tree of Life. --Franz Kafka

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted. --Franz Kafka

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. --Franz Kafka

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