“All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else.”
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Franz Kafka 266
author 1883–1924Related quotes
“I am so in love with you that there isn’t anything else.”
“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”
Lord Mayor’s Banquet, Guildhall, London (9 November 1954) The Unwritten Alliance, page 195, Columbia University, NY (1966),page 195,
Post-war years (1945–1955)
“I feel that by writing I am doing what is far more necessary than anything else.”
“I never did anything according to what anyone else wanted. That's why I think I am happy.”
Parade interview (2009)
Context: I never did anything according to what anyone else wanted. That's why I think I am happy. I do everything 100% — even my stupidest missteps. I know when I'm getting ready to mess up, I'm going to do it full-on.
“I am the penny whistle of American literature.”
"I heard him say one time" about being cheated out of the profits of The Man With the Golden Arm film, quoted by Kurt Vonnegut, 1986.
Nonfiction works
“I am the enfant terrible of literature and science.”
Myself
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XII - The Enfant Terrible of Literature
The Canton, Ohio Speech, Anti-War Speech (1918)
Context: I never had much faith in leaders. I am willing to be charged with almost anything, rather than to be charged with being a leader. I am suspicious of leaders, and especially of the intellectual variety. Give me the rank and file every day in the week. If you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses — you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.