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.”

“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.”

“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.

If he stayed home and led his normal life he was infinitely superior to any of these people, and could kick any one of them out of his path.

You’re under arrest all right, but not the way a thief would be. If you’re arrested like a thief, that’s bad, but this arrest—. It seems like something scholarly, I’m sorry if that sounds stupid, but it seems like something scholarly that I don’t understand, but that I don’t need to understand either.”

But he saw at once that this would be a gross overreaction and even suspected himself of wishing to change lodgings because of the morning’s events. Nothing would be more irrational, and above all more pointless and contemptible.

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

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

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