Kafka Love Letters To Milena Quotes

You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.

Yours (now I'm even losing my name - it was getting shorter and shorter all the time and is now: Yours)

I long for you; I who usually longs without longing, as though I am unconscious and absorbed in neutrality and apathy, really, utterly long for every bit of you.

Dear Milena, I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say: “Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fear or restraint. Because the world is ending tomorrow.” Perhaps we don’t love unreasonably because we think we have time, or have to reckon with time. But what if we don't have time? Or what if time, as we know it, is irrelevant? Ah, if only the world were ending tomorrow. We could help each other very much.

Milena, if a million loved you, I am one of them, and if one loved you, it was me, if no one loved you then know that I am dead.

Nor is it perhaps really love when I say that for me you are the most beloved; In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself.

When one is alone, imperfection must be endured every minute of the day; a couple, however, does not have to put up with it. Aren’t our eyes made to be torn out, and our hearts for the same purpose? At the same time it’s really not that bad; that’s an exaggeration and a lie, everything is exaggeration, the only truth is longing. But even the truth of longing is not so much its own truth; it’s really an expression for everything else, which is a lie. This sounds crazy and distorted, but it’s true. Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most - you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love. This, my dear, is love.

It occurs to me that I really can't remember your face in any precise detail. Only the way you walked away through the tables in the café, your figure, your dress, that I still see.

And actually it is not you at all I love, but rather the existence you have bestowed on me

you are the knife i turn inside myself; that is love, that, my dear, is love

Auch ist es vielleicht nicht eigentlich Liebe wenn ich sage, daß Du mir das Liebste bist; Liebe ist, dass Du mir das Messer bist, mit dem ich in mir wühle. An Milena Jesenska (14. September 1920)

You cannot love me, much as you would like; you are unhappily in love with your love for me, but your love for me is not in love with you.

And actually it's not at all you I love, but rather the existence you have bestowed on me.

Because I love you (you see, I do love you, you dimwit, my love engulfs you the way the sea loves a tiny pebble on its bed-and may I be the pebble with you, heaven permitting)

Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most – you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love. This, my dear, is love.

All right then, I’ll be mad at you on this score, which incidentally is no great misfortune, as things balance out quite well if there’s a little anger for you lurking in one corner of my heart.

I always succeed in not being jealous but only sometimes in comprehending the pointlessness of jealousy.

I'm tired, can't think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that for through all eternity.

Yetkin, ama acı veren bir büyü ile buradasınız! Benim burada olduğum gibi, daha da elle tutulur biçimde; ben neredeysem siz de oradasınız, benim olduğum kadar, daha da belirli.

You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love” - Letters to Milena

Now, before I go to sleep because it is your wish and because it is so simple, I will whisper in your ear how much I love you

Non spaventarti se senti le mie labbra sul collo, non volevo baciarti, è soltanto amore impacciato.

Milena lütfen bana yardım edin! Söyleyebildiklerimden daha da fazlasını anlamaya çalışın.

İki saatlik yaşam iki sayfalık bir yazıdan daha iyidir diye emin olmayın. Yazı yoksuldur ama daha temizdir.

it's only love which can't be helped

Cara signora Milena, la giornata è molto breve, con Lei e soltanto con qualche altra inezia è bell'e passata e terminata. E' molto se rimane un po' di tempo per scrivere alla vera Milena perché quella ancor più vera era qui tutto il giorno nella camera, sul balcone, nelle nuvole.

You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love

Milena birisi yüzünüzü iki elinin arasına sıkıştırıp , doğruca gözlerinizin içine bakmalı ki bu kişinin gözlerinde kendinizi gördükten sonra bir daha yazdığınız şeyleri aklınızadan bile geçiremeyeceksiniz.

The most beautiful of your letters (and that means a lot, for as a whole they are, almost in every line, the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me in my life) are those in which you agree with my 'fear' and at the same time try to explain that I don't need to have it. For I too, even though I may sometimes look like a bribed defender of my 'fear', probably agree with it deep down in myself, indeed it is part of me and perhaps the best part. And as it is my best, it is also perhaps this alone that you love. For what else worthy of love could be found in me? But this is worthy of love.

I've read the Sunday letter once again, it's even more terrible than I thought after the first reading. One ought, Milena, to take your face between both hands and look steadily into your eyes so that you would recognize yourself in the eyes of the other and from then on be incapable even of thinking the kind of things you wrote in this letter.

Şimdi ise , yüreğine ve aklına aynı şekilde etki eden bir sesle Milena seni çağırıyor. Tabii ki Milena seni tanımıyor, duyduğu bir kaç hikaye ve yazılan bazı mektuplar gözünü kör etmiş. Milena bir deniz gibi, içinde çok fazla su barındıran bir deniz kadar güçlü, tüm gücüyle patlayan fakat bazen yanlış yola girip ölümü ya da uzaktaki ayı takip eden. O seni tanımıyor, gelmeni istemesi gerçeği anlamak istemesinden başka bir şey değil. Senin mevcut halini gördükten sonra gözlerinin açılacağından emin olabilirsin. Bundan çekindiğin için mi gitmek istemiyorsun hassas ruh, korktuğun tam olarak bu değil mi?

Whenever I write to you, sleep is out of the question, both before and after; when I don't write, I at least get a few hours of shallow sleep. When I don't write, I am merely tired, sad, heavy; when I do write, I am torn by fear and anxiety.

No, one more thing today: if you miss me so much as one minute of your sleep by translating, it will amount to putting a curse on me. For when the Day of Judgement comes it will not be a question of closer investigation but simply of establishing: He has deprived her of sleep. Of this I shall be found guilty and rightly so. So I'm fighting for myself when I ask you not to do this anymore.

Nevertheless, the chief thing is: Whatever the others surrounding you in a wide circle may say about you, in superior wisdom, in bestial (except that beasts are not like that) denseness, in diabolical kindness, in homicidal love - I, I, Milena, know to my last fibre that whatever you do you will be doing right, whether you stay in Vienna, or do now this, now that. What, after all, should I be doing with you if I didn't know this? As in the deep sea there is no tiniest spot that isn't always under the heaviest pressure, so it is with you, but any other life is a disgrace and makes me sick to think of; until recently I thought I couldn't endure life, couldn't endure people, and was very ashamed of it, but you confirm to me now that it wasn't life that seemed undendurable to me.

This sounds crazy, but it is so. Nor is it perhaps really love when I say that for me you are the most beloved; love is to me that you are the knife which I turn within myself.

I am caught in a tide of sorrow and love which is carrying me away from writing.

So now I seat you in the chair, unable to grasp the scope of my fortune with words eyes hands and my poor heart, my happiness that you are here and really mine. And actually it’s not at all you I love, but rather the existence you have bestowed on me.

Perhaps their strength to love consists solely in their ability to love.

What you wrote about the people, Milena - 'nemáte síly milovat' - 'who haven't got the strength to love' - was correct, even though while writing it down you didn't consider it correct. Perhaps their talent for love consists only in the ability to be loved. And even in this exists a qualifying distinction for these people. If one of them says to his beloved: 'I believe that you love me', then this is something completely different and much less than when he says: 'I'm loved by you'. These, of course, are not lovers but grammarians.

Uykusuzluğum beni nereye götürdü? Çok iyi anlatılamayan hiçbir şeye. Eminim...

Dünyada benim ihtiyaç duyduğum kadar sabır var mı Milena?

their devilish kindness, their murderous love

you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love.

I am dirty, Milena, endlessly dirty, that is why I make such a fuss about cleanliness. None sing as purely as those in deepest hell; it is their singing we take for the singing of angels.

...this passion for letters is senseless. Isn't one letter enough, isn't one knowing enough? Of course it is, but nevertheless I am tilting my head way back, drinking the letters, aware only that I don't want to stop drinking.

...I was just as incapable of getting up... I said to myself, this was not an accident but death throes... Somehow this probably gave me, too, a little courage...

It occurs to me that I really can't remember your face in any precise detail. Only the way you walked away through the tables in the café, your figure, your dress, that I still see.

I would be speaking even with my silence, because at the moment I am nothing but a single word.

I can't think of anything to write, I'm just walking around here between the lines, underneath the light of your eyes, in the breath of your mouth like in some beautiful happy day, which stays beautiful and happy even if my head is sick, tired...

...this endless white paper burns out one's eyes, which is why one writes.

...it's the kind of worry I'd have if you were here under my supervision, if I were simultaneously giving you nourishment with the milk I drink, giving you strength with the air I breathe, as it wafts up from the garden; no, all that isn't enough, it would have to give you much more strength than it does me.

Because I love you (you see, I do love you, you dimwit, my love engulfs you the way the sea loves a tiny pebble on its bed--and I may be the pebble with you, heaven permitting) I love the whole world and I'll kiss it whenever I want to