“Alas,” said the mouse, “the world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I say walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.” “You need only change your direction,” said the cat, and ate it up.

— Franz Kafka
Quoted By David Foster Wallace in
“Some Remarks On Kafka’s Funniness From Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed”