triii

“For him [Kafka], the most tormenting thing about his notion of marriage must have been its ruling out the possibility of one's ever becoming so small as to be able to vanish: one has to be there.”
― Elias Canetti, Kafka's Other Trial: The Letters to Felice

“Love, but not the sensuous fire that burns, scorches and tortures, that inflicts more wounds than it cures—flaring up now, at the next moment being extinguished, leaving behind more coldness and loneliness than was felt before. Rather, love that lies like a soft but firm hand on the ailing beings, ever unchanged in its sympathy, without wavering, unconcerned with any response it meets. Love that is comforting coolness to those who burn with the fire of suffering and passion; that is life-giving warmth to those abandoned in the cold desert of loneliness, to those who are shivering in the frost of a loveless world; to those whose hearts have become as if empty and dry by the repeated calls for help, by deepest despair.”
― Nyanaponika Thera, The Four Sublime States and the Practice of Loving Kindness

“The freedom to fail is preserved, as a sort of supreme law, which guarantees escape at every fresh juncture. One is inclined to call this the freedom of the weak person who seeks salvation in defeat. His true uniqueness, his special relation to power, is expressed in the prohibition of victory. All calculations originate and end in impotence.”
― Elias Canetti, Kafka's Other Trial: The Letters to Felice

“For a good part of his [Kafka's] work consists of tentative steps toward perpetually changing possibilities of future. He does not acknowledge a single future, there are many; this multiplicity of futures paralyzes him and burdens his step.”
― Elias Canetti, Kafka's Other Trial: The Letters to Felice