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Franz Kafka: Photographic portrait, 1923Photographic portrait, 1923Unknown photographer · Public domain

158 collected words

Franz Kafka

Life dates: 1883 AD — 1924 AD

German-language writer from Prague whose stories and unfinished novels place ordinary-seeming people in disorienting encounters with power and uncertainty.

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Life and writing

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) wrote in German and is closely associated with Prague. His work includes The Metamorphosis and novels such as The Trial. Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries preserve a major collection of his papers, making the manuscripts important evidence alongside published editions.

Kafka’s stories have continued to invite literary, artistic and scholarly reinterpretation. The Oxford centenary programme places the manuscripts and their reception together. That context matters when a short passage circulates alone: an isolated narrator’s words are not automatically the author’s personal instruction.

Reading this voice

Notice who is speaking and what the situation makes uncertain. Kafka’s unsettling scenes can be comic as well as disturbing; a single explanatory slogan may miss their ambiguity. A biographical profile does not verify the translation or attribution of every imported quotation.

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Profile sources and editorial notes

Agent-assisted editorial profile, updated 2026-10-08. A human reviewer is not recorded. Biographical context does not independently authenticate every quotation attributed to this person.

Quotations and sayings

11c. 1903 AD
The hardest bones, containing the richest marrow, can be conquered only by a united crushing of all the teeth of all dogs. That of course is only a figure of speech and exaggerated; if all teeth were but ready they would not need even to bite, the bones would crack themselves and the marrow would be freely accessible to the feeblest of dogs. If I remain faithful to this metaphor, then the goal of my aims, my questions, my inquiries, appears monstrous, it is true. For I want to compel all dogs thus to assemble together, I want the bones to crack open under the pressure of their collective preparedness, and then I want to dismiss them to the ordinary life they love, while all by myself, quite alone, I lap up the marrow. That sounds monstrous, almost as if I wanted to feed on the marrow, not merely of bone, but of the whole canine race itself. But it is only a metaphor. The marrow that I am discussing here is no food; on the contrary, it is a poison.
Franz Kafka / quote
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14c. 1903 AD
One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die. This life appears unbearable, another unattainable. One is no longer ashamed of wanting to die; one asks to be moved from the old cell, which one hates, to a new one, which one willl only in time come to hate. In this there is also a residue of belief that during the move the master will chance to come along the corridor, look at the prisoner and say: "This man is not to be locked up again, He is to come with me.
Franz Kafka / quote
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18c. 1903 AD
When the little mouse, which was loved as none other was in the mouse-world, got into a trap one night and with a shrill scream forfeited its life for the sight of the bacon, all the mice in the district, in their holes were overcome by trembling and shaking; with eyes blinking uncontrollably they gazed at each other one by one, while their tails scraped the ground busily and senselessly. Then they came out, hesitantly, pushing one another, all drawn towards the scene of death. There it lay, the dear little mouse, its neck caught in the deadly iron, the little pink legs drawn up, and now stiff the feeble body that would so well have deserved a scrap of bacon.The parents stood beside it and eyed their child's remains.
Franz Kafka / quote
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