Kafka की किताब Abandoned Fragments में उनके जीवन के अधूरे वाक्य, अधूरी entries, अधूरी कहानियाँ और वो सब कुछ है जो कभी publish नहीं हुआ। इस किताब के बारे में पहले भी बता चुके हैं। किताब में बहुत कुछ मिला और उसके साथ में बहुत से कुरेदने वाले quotes. तो वही दे रहे हैं। 

Abandoned Fragments – Franz Kafka | अधूरी सुंदर है

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Quotes From Kafka’s Abandoned Fragments

Its nature is such that you forget the true names of things and hastily slap accidental names on them now. Just quick, quick! But as soon as you run away from them, you’ll forget their names. The poplar in the fields that you named the ‘Tower of Babel’ for you didn’t know or didn’t care to know that it was a poplar tree, is swaying again namelessly, and you would have to name it ‘Noah when he was drunk.

I was somewhat dismayed when he said: “I’m glad I didn’t understand what you were saying.” Flustered, I said quickly: “Your being glad shows me that you understood.”

It may have been in this small, completely quiet lull between day and night when our heads, unexpectedly, hang in the backs of our necks, and when, unbeknownst to us, everything stands still since we’re not watching, and then disappears. While we remain alone with arched bodies, then turn around but don’t see anything anymore, and feel no resistance from the air either, but inside us hold onto the memory that, at a certain distance from us, there stand houses with roofs and, luckily, square chimneys, through which darkness flows into the houses, through the garrets into the various rooms. And it is fortunate that tomorrow will be a day when unbelievable as it is, one will be able to see it all that.

We construct quite useless war machines, towers, walls, curtains of silk, and we might wonder a lot about that if we had the time. And remain suspended in the air, we don’t fall, we flutter, even though we’re uglier than bats. And now hardly anyone can prevent us from saying on a beautiful day: ‘Oh Lord, it’s a beautiful day today.’ For already we are settled in on this earth, and we live on the basis of our consent.

“What are our lungs supposed to do,” I shouted, shouted, “if they breathe quickly, they’ll suffocate on themselves, on their inner toxins; if they breathe slowly, they’ll suffocate from unbreathable air, from outraged things. But if they want to find their right speed, they’ll drown during the search.”

But all the work in the world doesn’t entitle one to be treated with love by everyone; rather, one is a complete stranger to everyone. And as long as you say “one” instead of “I,” it’s nothing and one can recite this story, but as soon as you admit to yourself that it’s you, then it virtually bores right through you, and you are horrified.

For if the driver was sleeping, he would wake up in the morning, if he was dead, a new driver would be coming, or the innkeeper, and if even that were not to happen, passengers would be coming on the early train, people in a hurry, making noise. At any rate, one could be quiet, could even draw the curtains in front of the windows, and wait for the jolt with which the omnibus was bound to start up.

Every man carries a room within himself. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing. When someone walks quickly and one listens closely, say at night, when everything around is quiet, one can hear for example the clatter of a wall mirror not firmly mounted or the shade

With your very tenderest hand, with your very strongest eye for truthful reality, with your fantastically vast knowledge, with the controlled and mighty core fire of your poetic nature, may you continue to erect such monuments – to my unspeakable joy.

I immediately brought paper and ink, dipped the bird’s beak in the ink, and, without the bird putting up any resistance, wrote the following: “I, stork-like bird, undertake to carry you on my back to southern climes, provided that you feed me to fish, frogs, and worms (I added the last two foods because they are cheap) until I can fly.” I then wiped off his beak and held the paper in front of the bird’s eyes once more before folding it and placing it in my billfold.

Dreams were cascading over me; I was lying in my bed, tired and hopeless.

Also: The Castle | Have We Reached There, Yet!