Franz Kafka Book Quotations

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

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?

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

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.

Books are a narcotic.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

Some books seem like a key to unfamiliar rooms in one’s own castle.

A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.

We need the books that affect us like a disaster

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?

I see, these books are probably law books, and it is an essential part of the justice dispensed here that you should be condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance.

A book should serve as an axe to the ice inside us.

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?

. . . The books we need are 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 an axe for the frozen sea within us.