Kafka

"Kafka was now moving steadily towards a total commitment to writing in order, in some sense, to define his whole existence. The obvious constraints on such an absolute dedication remained unchanged – work, family, the uncooperative physical body – but he now began to believe that his incapacity in other directions demanded a retrenchment to the one activity he knew he could do well. 'It is easy to recognize a concentration in me of all my forces on writing,' he wrote in his journal at the beginning of January 1912. 'When it became clear in my organism that writing was the most productive direction for my being to take, everything rushed in that direction...'."

Nicholas Murray. Kafka. London: Abacus, 2014, p. 105