Metamorphosis Kafka Quotes & Sayings

You can judge this book by its cover. — Tom Icon

Most animals are like the unfortunate Gregor Samsa after metamorphosis. They are Kafka-creatures, organisms with rich thoughts and emotions but no system for translating what they think into something that they can express to others. — Marc Hauser

One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, "As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect ... " When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn't know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gregor's glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather - the
rain drops were falling audibly down on the metal window
ledge - made him quite melancholy. — Franz Kafka

McCabe's Law: Nobody has to do anything. — Charles McCabe

Did he really want this warm room of his, so comfortably fitted with old family furniture, to be transformed into a cave, in which, no doubt, he would be free to crawl about unimpeded in all directions, but only at the price of rapidly and completely forgetting his human past at the same time? — Franz Kafka

I've always gone with Kafka's model of establishing the world from the first line, as in Kafka's famous line from Metamorphosis, "Gregor Samsa woke up from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect" (or beetle or cockroach, depending on the translation). I have to have that first line before I can go further. — Laurie Foos

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka — Franz Kafka

In today's world it is deceptively easy to lose sight of our direction and the things that matter and give us joy. How quickly the days can slip by, the years all gone, and we, at the end of our lives, mourning the life we dreamed of but never lived. Poetry urges us to stand once and for all, and now, in the heart of our own life. — Roger Housden

Hello there. I'm out social climbing, but if you leave your name and number and if you're anybody, I'll get back to you. — Erma Bombeck

He who has read Kafka's Metamorphosis and can look into his mirror unflinching may technically be able to read print, but is illiterate in the only sense that matters. — George Steiner

But when at long last he had got his head out over the side of the bed, in mid-air, he became afraid of continuing in this manner, for if he were to fall like that it would take a miracle for him not to sustain a head injury. And consciousness was the last thing he wanted to lose at the present time; he would rather stay in bed. — Franz Kafka

There is no one who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this is the result of his own free will he must regard his will as not free, or the circular reasoning in this position would be quite apparent. Free will must lead to freedom. — Foundation For Inner Peace

The summer of the gypsy moths when all the trees in their yard were bare, the leaves chewed by caterpillars. You could hear crunching in the night. You could see silvery cocoon webbing in porch rafter and strung across stop signs. — Alice Hoffman

The times of Arab nationalism and unity are gone forever. These ideas which mobilized the masses are only a worthless currency. Libya has had to put up with too much from the Arabs for whom it has poured forth both blood and money. — Muammar Al-Gaddafi

And now you intend to stay here with us in Riva?' asked the burgomaster. 'I do not,' said the hunter with a smile, and to excuse the jest he laid his hand on the burgomaster's knee. 'I am here, more than that I do not know. My boat has no rudder, it is driven by the wind that blows in the nethermost regions of death. — Franz Kafka

There is no part of one's beliefs about oneself which cannot be modified by sufficiently powerful psychological techniques. There is nothing about oneself which cannot be taken away or changed. The proper stimuli can, if correctly applied, turn communists into fascists, saints into devils, the meek into heroes, and vice-versa. There is no sovereign sanctuary within ourseles which represents our real nature. There is nobody at home in the internal fortress. Everything we cherish as our ego, everything we believe in, is just what we have cobbled together out of the accident of our birth and subsequent experiences. With drugs, brainwashing, and other techniques of extreme persuasion, we can quite readily make a man a devotee of a different ideology, the patriot of a different country, or the follower of a different religion. — Peter J. Carroll

But then - I was just following him in reverie over mountain and valley - he jumped with both feet onto the middle of my body. I shuddered with wild pain, utterly uncomprehending. Who was it? A child? A gymnast? A daredevil? A suicide? A tempter? An annihilator? — Franz Kafka

The books we need are of the kind that act upon us like a misfortune,that makes 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,lost in a forest remote from all human habitation — Franz Kafka

The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn. — T.H. White

Mind concentrates: it acts out of the past. Meditation acts in the present, out of the present. — Rajneesh

You can call me gay or a tutti-frutti
But I won't touch it until I know whose booty — Erick Sermon

Kafka regarded the end of "The Metamorphosis"- its composition in interrupted by a business trip- as "unreadable." He also wrote in his diary that he found it"bad," but of course Kafka relished his failure. Failure is precisely what he expected and resolved to accomplish- and he hid behind it. — Franz Kafka

If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. — Franz Kafka