From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.
German is my mother tongue and as such more natural to me, but I consider Czech much more affectionate, which is why your letter removes several uncertainties; I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so resolute, it’s almost like a meeting.
Evil does not exist; once you have crossed the threshold, all is good. Once in another world, you must hold your tongue.
Do you know, darling? When you became involved with others you quite possibly stepped down a level or two, but If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.
Logic is doubtless unshakable, but it cannot withstand a man who wants to go on living.
Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it.
The Expulsion from Paradise is eternal in its principal aspect: this makes it irrevocable, and our living in this world inevitable, but the eternal nature of the process has the effect that not only could we remain forever in Paradise, but that we are currently there, whether we know it or not.
The animal wrests the whip from its master and whips itself in order to become master, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by a new knot in the master’s whiplash.
It certainly was not my intention to make you suffer, yet i have done so; obviously it never will be my intention to make you suffer, yet I shall always do so.
Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope – but not for us.
A false ring of the night bell, once answered – it can never be made right.
These are the seductive voices of the night; the Sirens, too, sang that way. It would be doing them an injustice to think that they wanted to seduce; they knew they had claws and sterile wombs, and they lamented this aloud. They could not help it if their laments sounded so beautiful.
Nothing unites two people so completely, especially if, like you and me, all they have is words.
Gregor, open up, I’m pleading with you.′ But Gregor had absolutely no intention of opening the door and complimented himself instead on the precaution he had adopted from his business trips of locking all the doors during the night even at home.
My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast.
There am I. I cannot leave. I have nothing to complain about. I do not suffer excessively, for I do not suffer consistently, it does not pile up, at least I do not feel it for the time being, and the degree of my suffering is far less than the suffering that is perhaps my due.
The main thing, when a sword cuts into one’s soul, is to keep a calm gaze, lose no blood, accept the coldness of the sword with the coldness of a stone. By means of the stab, after the stab, become invulnerable.
How many days have again gone silently by; today is 28 May. Have I not even the resolution to take this penholder, this piece of wood, in my hand every day? I really think I do not. I row, ride, swim, lie in the sun.
Caci pe cine ai uitat, poti sa-l cunosti din nou.
Even years afterward I suffered from the tormenting fancy that the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority, would come almost for no reason at all and take me out of bed in the night and carry me out onto the pavlatche, and that consequently I meant absolutely nothing as far as he was concerned.