Sleep is the most innocent creature there is and a sleepless man the most guilty. — Franz Kafka

Most men are not wicked… They are sleep–walkers, not evil evildoers. — Franz Kafka

Writing is a deeper sleep than death. Just as one wouldn’t pull a corpse from its grave, I can’t be dragged from my desk at night. — Franz Kafka

I am too tired, I must try to rest and sleep, otherwise I am lost in every respect. What an effort to keep alive! Erecting a monument does not require an expenditure of so much strength. — Franz Kafka

But sleep? On a night like this? What an idea! Just think of how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm. — Franz Kafka

What if I slept a little more and forgot about all this nonsense. — Franz Kafka

No,’ said the priest, ‘you don’t need to accept everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary.’ ‘Depressing view,’ said K. ‘The lie made into the rule of the world. — Franz Kafka

It is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary.’ ‘A melancholy conclusion,’ said K. ‘It turns lying into a universal principle. — Franz Kafka

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. — Franz Kafka

It certainly was not my intention to make you suffer, yet i have done so; obviously it never will be my intention to make you suffer, yet I shall always do so. — Franz Kafka

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made. — Franz Kafka

Programming went back to the beginning of time. It was a little like the midden out back of his father’s castle. — Vernor Vinge

Now is our time. It’s our time to chase rainbows and build castles in the sky. It’s our time to create a life that we love. Because someday, it will no longer be our time. — Shawn Anderson

Logic may indeed be unshakeable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live. — Franz Kafka

I need solitude for my writing; not ‘like a hermit’–that wouldn’t be enough–but like a dead man. — Franz Kafka

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air. — Franz Kafka

Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire. — Franz Kafka

I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness. — Franz Kafka

What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness. — Franz Kafka

The person I am in the company of my sisters has been entirely different from the person I am in the company of other people. Fearless, powerful, surprising, moved as I otherwise am only when I write. — Franz Kafka

Even castles in the sky can do with a fresh coat of paint. — Haruki Murakami

Do you know the difference between neurotics and psychotics?’ ‘Neurotics build castles in the sky; psychotics move into them. — Tanya Thompson

Was he an animal, that music could move him so? He felt as if the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for were coming to light. — Franz Kafka

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self. — Franz Kafka

The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. — Oswald Chambers

Clouds do not really look like camels or sailing ships or castles in the sky. They are simply a natural process at work. So too, perhaps, are our lives. — Roger Ebert