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"At the same time all the houses round about promptly took part in this silence, and so did the darkness above them, reaching as far as the stars. And the footsteps of invisible passers-by, whose course I had no wish to guess at, the wind that kept on driving against the other side of the street, the gramophone singing behind closed windows in some room - they made themselves heard in this silence, as if they had owned it for ever and ever."
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Explore more quotes by Franz Kafka

"Suffering is the positive element in this world, indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive."

"Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins."

"Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins."

"You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."

"We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt."
Exlpore more Atmosphere quotes

"Under the glass porte-cochA re of a theatre Amory stood, watching the first great drops of rain splatter down and flatten to dark stains on the sidewalk. The air became grey and opalescent; a solitary light suddenly outlined a window over the way; then another light; then a hundred more danced and glimmered into vision. Under his feet a thick, iron-studded skylight turned yellow; in the street the lamps of the taxicabs sent out glistening sheens along the already black pavement. The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the day's last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence, the night."

"Dark nights are unpleasant," "Yes, for strangers to travel,""The clouds are heavy.""Yes, a storm is approaching."

"It was a small room with dim light coming in the window, reminiscent of old Polish films."

"A few fires flickered, plumes of dark smoke marring the ruby sky."

"The house, and all the objects in it, crackled with static electricity; undertows washed through it, the air was heavy with things that were known but not spoken. Like a hollow log, a drum, a church, it was amplified, so that conversations whispered in it sixty years ago can be half-heard today."

"Sleepiness seemed to be creeping out of the ground and up their legs, and falling softly out of the air upon theirheads and eyes."

"Sad hotels existed everywhere, to be sure, but the Dolphin was in a class of its own. The Dolphin Hotel was conceptually sorry. The Dolphin Hotel was tragic."

"The smog curled between the streetlamps and the spokes of the wrought iron framework. It seemed through your body and into your bones."

"Fancy your having no sunshine in London yesterday! Here it was glorious, like full summer, and I sat up with the window wide open, listening to the discourse of two amorous thrushes."

"The air soft as that of Seville in April, and so fragrant that it was delicious to breathe it."
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