Franz Kafka Quotes

I feel, in the end, as if everything I've done has been a failure.

Nobody likes a child to die or losing an election.

I was just tired of losing... Life was passing me by.

Everything I have done has been wasted. In another 20 years France will be dead.

This dream of King’s is going to be turned into a nightmare

When you want something desperately and you lose it, no matter how hard you try to get yourself motivated, it's always difficult.

I have had my share of flops and it's very discouraging. It's pathetic to be on that side.

I thought not getting picked in the first round was the end of the world.

I'd lost count of the disappointments.

I’ve lived to bury my desires, And see my dreams corrode with rust; Now all that’s left are fruitless fires That burn my empty heart to dust.

My hopes were all dead --- struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive.

And nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.

He could not play the game without hope; could not play the game without a dream. They had taken it all away from him now, they had turned away from him and there was nothing for him now...He was alone and there was nothing for him.

After all, there is nothing but failure.

Have you ever felt despair? Absolute hopelessness? Have you ever stood in the darkness and known, deep in your heart, in your spirit, that it was never, ever going to get better? That something had been lost, forever, and that it wasn't coming back?

Mr. Lincoln had no hope, and no faith, in the usual acceptation of those words.

Cold sinks in, there to stay. And people, they'll leave you, sure. There's no return to what was and no way back. There's just emptiness all around, and you in it, like singing up from the bottom of a well, like nothing else, until you harm yourself, until you are a mad dog biting yourself for sympathy. Because there is no relenting.

Early evening traffic was beginning to clog the avenue with cars. The sun slanted down behind him. Harry glanced at the drivers of the cars. They seemed unhappy. The world was unhappy. People were in the dark. People were terrified and disappointed. People were caught in traps. People were defensive and frantic. They felt as if their lives were being wasted. And they were right.

Come on in girls, and leave all hope behind.

When I realize that she is gone, perhaps gone forever, a great void opens up and I feel that I am falling, falling, falling into deep, black space. And this is worse than tears, deeper than regret or pain or sorrow, it is the abyss into which Satan was plunged. There is no climbing back, no ray of light, no sound of human voice or human touch of hand.

I think hope is the worst thing in the world. I really do. It makes a fool of you while it lasts. And then when it's gone, it's like there's nothing left of you at all . . . except what you can't be rid of.

There were a billion lights out there on the horizon and I knew that all of them put together weren't enough to light the darkness in the hearts of some men.

I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me.

I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened.