All FRANZ KAFKA Quotes about “Books”

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of oneâ€™s own self.”
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.”
“A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.”
“Books are a narcotic.”
“A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.”
“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.”
“Some books seem like a key to unfamiliar rooms in oneâ€™s own castle.”
“. . . 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.”
“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?”
“A book should serve as an axe to the ice inside us.”
“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.”
“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? So that it shall make us happy? Good God, we should also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves; like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen 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?”

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