Kafka, Franz (1883 – 1924), Austrian (Czechoslovakian-born) author
There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
Now the sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence… someone might have escaped from their singing; but from their silence, certainly never.
