The Castle Quotes

“I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“You misinterpret everything, even the silence.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he'll never see anything.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“There's no quiet place here on earth for our love, not in the village and not anywhere else, so I picture a grave, deep and narrow, in which we embrace as if clamped together, I bury my face against you, you yours against me, and no one will ever see us.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Since I met you, I've felt abandoned without your nearness; your nearness is all I ever dream of, the only thing.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“One must fight to get to the top, especially if one starts at the bottom.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Our winters are very long here, very long and very monotonous. But we don't complain about it downstairs, we're shielded against the winter. Oh, spring does come eventually, and summer, and they last for a while, but now, looking back, spring and summer seem too short, as if they were not much more than a couple of days, and even on those days, no matter how lovely the day, it still snows occasionally.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Illusions are more common than changes in fortune”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“It isn’t easy to understand exactly what she is saying, for one doesn’t know whether she is speaking ironically or seriously, it’s mostly serious, but sounds ironic. - “Stop interpreting everything!” said K.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Deceptions are more frequent than changes”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“and i would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“all [the authorities] did was to guard the distant and invisible interests of distant and invisible masters”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“It seemed to K. as if at last those people had broken off all relations with him, and as if now in reality he were freer than he had ever been, and at liberty to wait here in this place usually forbidden to him as long as he desired, and had won a freedom such as hardly anybody else had ever succeeded in winning, and as if nobody could dare touch him or drive him away, or even speak to him, but — this conviction was at least equally as strong — as if at the same time there was nothing more senseless, more hopeless, than this freedom, this waiting, this inviolability.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Other opportunities arise from time to time that almost don't accord with the overall situation, opportunities whereby a word, a glance, a sigh of trust may achieve more than a lifetime of exhausting endeavour.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Of course I'm ignorant, that remains true at all events and is extremely distressing for me, but it does have the advantage that the ignorant man dares more, so I shall gladly put up with ignorance and its undoubtedly dire consequences for a while, as long as my strength lasts.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“those who are ignorant naturally consider everything possible.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“He speaks to Klamm, but is it Klamm? Isn’t it rather someone who merely resembles Klamm? Perhaps at the very most a secretary who is a little like Klamm and goes to great lengths to be even more like him and tries to seem important by affecting Klamm’s drowsy, dreamlike manner. That part of his being is easiest to imitate, many try to do so; as for the rest of his being, though, they wisely steer clear of it. And a man such as Klamm, who is so often the object of yearning and yet so rarely attained, easily takes on a variety of shapes in the imagination of people. For instance, Klamm has a village secretary here called Momus. Really? You know him? He too keeps to himself but I have seen him a couple of times. A powerful young gentleman, isn’t he? And so he probably doesn’t look at all like Klamm? And yet you can find people in the village who would swear that Momus is Klamm and none other than he. That’s how people create confusion for themselves. And why should it be any different at the Castle?”
― Franz Kafka, The 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.”
“Chairman, allow me to interrupt you with a question,” said K., “didn’t you mention a control agency? As you describe it, the organization is such that the very thought that the control agency might fail to materialize is enough to make one ill.”
“You’re very severe,” said the chairman, “but multiply your severity by a thousand and it will still be as nothing compared with the severity that the authorities show toward themselves. 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.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“It seemed to k. as if all contact with him had been cut and he was more of a free agent than ever. He could wait here, in a place usually forbidden to him, as long as he liked, and he also felt as if he gad won that freedom with more effort than most people could manage to make, and no one could touch him or drive him away, why, they hardly had a right even to adress him. But at the same time - and this feeling was at least as strong - he felt as if there were nothing more meaningless and more desperate than this freedom, this waiting, this invulnerability.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“to be sure, all that pointless standing about and waiting day after day always starting all over again without any prospect of change, will wear a man down and make him doubtful, and ultimately incapable of anything but that despairing standing about.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Oh, if only you knew how hard I try to find a kernel of good for myself in all you do and say, even if it torments me.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“How suicidal happiness can be!”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Faptele dumneavoastra vor lasa poate urme adînci de pasi în zapada, dar atît.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Hier war es wohl die Müdigkeit inmitten glücklicher Arbeit; etwas, was nach außen hin wie Müdigkeit aussah und eigentlich unzerstörbare Ruhe, unzerstörbarer Frieden war.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“The officials are very well educated, but only in a one-sided way; in his own department, an official will see a whole train of ideas behind a single word, but you can spend hours on end explaining matters from another department to him, and while he may nod politely he doesn’t understand a bit of it. Of course that’s all perfectly natural, you just have to think of the little official matters affecting yourself, tiny things that an official will deal with merely by shrugging his shoulders, you just have to understand that thoroughly, and then you will have plenty to occupy your mind all your life and never run out of ideas.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Official decisions are as elusive
as young girls.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“Evidentemente, soy muy ignorante, la verdad es esa, y es muy triste para mi, pero esto supone una ventaja: El ignorante osa a más cosas. También estoy preparado para soportar todavía un poco la ignorancia y sus consecuencias -malas, de acuerdo- tanto como resistan mis fuerzas.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“He certainly goes into the offices, but are the offices really the castle? And even if the castle does have offices, are they the offices which Barnabas is allowed to enter?”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“The conclusion to be drawn from this was that this was in its way a quite different sort of fatigue from K.'s. Here it was doubtless fatigue amid happy work, something that outwardly looked like fatigue and was actually indestructible repose, indestructible peace. If one is a little tired at noon, that is part of the happy natural course of the day. 'For the gentlemen here it is always noon,' K. said to himself.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle

“He is a land surveyor, well, perhaps that is something, he has trained at something, but if there's nothing you can do with that training then it means nothing.”
― Franz Kafka, The Castle