I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us … We need the books that affect us like a disaster , that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide . A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
我认为我们应该读的是那些会刺痛我们的书……我们需要那些像灾难一样打击我们，让我们深深的痛苦的书，像失去了所爱之人一样，像被驱逐到荒无人烟的深林，像自我毁灭一样让我们痛苦的书。一本书应该像斧头一样劈开我们内心冰冻的水面。

——Franz Kafka, Letter to Oskar Pollark
——弗兰兹·卡夫卡