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"Letter to the Father/Brief an den Vater" Quotes
"Letter to the Father" is Franz Kafka's emotionally charged, introspective letter confronting his complex, fraught relationship with his authoritarian father.
literary collections | Published in 2015
Quotes
Dearest Father, you asked me recently why I maintain that I am afraid of you.
All my life you have reproached me, directly and indirectly, with being withdrawn, taciturn, unsociable.
I never lost the feeling that I was nothing but a burden to you.
Your opinion of me was inescapable, at least for the child I then was.
There was, after all, no love lost between us.
I was weighed down by your mere physical presence.
When you spoke to me, I was as if paralyzed.
You were for me the measure of all things.
I was no match for you, not even as a child.
You were so sure of yourself, I was so unsure.