Tausif Ahmed

“People label themselves with all sorts of adjectives. I can only pronounce myself as 'nauseatingly miserable beyond repair'.”
― Franz Kafka, Diaries, 1910-1923

“Now take a man who is sensitive, cultured, and of delicate conscience. What he feels kills him more surely than the material punishment. The judgement which he himself pronounces on his crime is more pitiless than that of the most severe tribunal, the most Draconian law. He lives side by side with another convict, who has not once during all his time in prison reflected on the murder he is expiating. He may even consider himself innocent. Are there not also poor devils who commit crimes in order to be sent to hard labour, and thus escape from a freedom which is much more painful than confinement?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead

“with a true friend one experiences something in the nature of spiritual enjoyment?”
― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

“What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself.”
― Nikolai Gogol, The Inspector General