"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy...? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But 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. That is my belief."
--Franz Kafka, letter to Oskar Polak, January 27, 1904
Ahhh I like that. I love that actually. Not exactly words to live by but...something about it (and Kafka in general) I really like.
ReplyDelete"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
Words are nice.