Max Brod, responding to Kafka's now-famous remark - "We are nihilistic thoughts that came into God's head" - explained to his friend the Gnostic notion that the Demiurge had made this world both sinful and evil. "No," Kafka replied, "I believe we are not such a radical relapse of God's, only one of His bad moods. He had a bad day." Playing straight man, the faithful Brod asked if this meant there was hope outside our cosmos. Kafka smiled, and charmingly said: "Plenty of hope - for God - no end of hope - only not for us."

-Harold Bloom, Introduction to Modern Critical Interpretations: Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis