- By Bornika Das
- Wed, 28 Jan 2026 07:25 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
The Metamorphosis Quotes: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is more than just a story. It is about Gregor Samsa, who wakes up to find that he has become an enormous insect. The story serves as a reflection of the silent, desperate struggles that people have to face in their lives. While children may laugh at its absurdness, they realise the honest truth about life as soon as they reach adulthood. The book talks about how people suffer exhaustion, emotional drainage and overwelming feeling that often feel like they are being chained down. The Metamorphosis quotes become clearer as we grow older and wiser, cutting through productivity and normalcy.
Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis shows us our fragile identities. The book also reflects how one unknown change in our lives can cause our entire lives to fall apart. Through The Metamorphosis quotes, Kafka talks about a world where people are driven to constantly hustle, hiding fears from others.
Must-Read Metamorphosis Quotes By Franz Kafka
- “I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
- “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
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- “Was he an animal, that music could move him so? He felt as if the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for were coming to light.”
- “He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.”

Quotes Of The Metamorphosis (Image Credits: Instagram)
- “He was a tool of the boss, without brains or backbone.”
- “Calm —indeed the calmest— reflection might be better than the most confused decisions”
- “I only fear danger where I want to fear it.”
- “What a fate: to be condemned to work for a firm where the slightest negligence at once gave rise to the gravest suspicion! Were all the employees nothing but a bunch of scoundrels, was there not among them one single loyal devoted man who, had he wasted only an hour or so of the firm's time in the morning, was so tormented by conscience as to be driven out of his mind and actually incapable of leaving his bed?”
- “And so gentlemen, I learned. Oh, if you have to learn, you learn; if you’re desperate for a way out, you learn; you learn pitilessly. You stand over yourself with a whip in your hand; if there’s the least resistance, you lash yourself.”
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- “Was he an animal if music could captivate him so? It seemed to him that he was being shown the way to the unknown nourishment he had been yearning for.”
- “One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous bug…”
- “The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.”
- “A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night.”
The quotes from Kafka's Metamorphosis continue to resonate with readers as they grow older and experience an increasingly difficult adulthood. Acceptance of these truths allows us to come to a place of freedom from despair through the ability to resist institutions that dehumanise us and to reclaim what it is to be human.





