The Trial: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text (The Schocken Kafka Library)

“I find it odd,” said Fräulein Bürstner, “to be forced to forbid you to do something your own conscience should forbid, namely, to enter my room when I’m away.”

One needn’t be particularly faint of heart to be easily persuaded of the impossibility of ever finishing the petition. Not because of laziness or deceit, the only things that kept the lawyer from finishing, but because without knowing the nature of the charge and all its possible ramifications, his entire life, down to the smallest actions and even

Committing suicide would be so irrational that even had he wished to, the irrationality of the act would have prevented him.

“they’re probably law books, and it’s in the nature of this judicial system that one is condemned not only in innocence but also in ignorance.

The commentators tell us: the correct understanding of a matter and misunderstanding the matter are not mutually exclusive.

“No,” said the priest, “you don’t have to consider everything true, you just have to consider it necessary.” “A depressing opinion,” said K. “Lies are made into a universal system.”

The court wants nothing from you. It receives you when you come and dismisses you when you go.”

Above all, if he wanted to get anywhere, he had to reject the notion of any possible guilt right from the start.

the old legal maxim: a suspect is better off moving than at rest, for one at rest may be on the scales without knowing it, being weighed with all his sins.”