Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" Homeland is something one becomes aware of only through its loss. "
Gunter Grass
Something
Only
Homeland
Related Quotes:
" We cannot get by Auschwitz. We should not even try, as great as the temptation is, because Auschwitz belongs to us, is branded into our history, and - to our benefit! - has made possible an insight that could be summarized as, 'Now we finally know ourselves.' "
Gunter Grass
Try
Great
History
" No idea stays pure. Even the flowering of art isn't pure. And the sun has spots. "
Gunter Grass
No Idea
Art
Even
" I have seen and drawn dying, poisoned worlds. I published a book of drawings called 'Death of Wood' about one such world, on the border between the Federal Republic of Germany and what was then still the German Democratic Republic. "
Gunter Grass
Dying
Death
Border
" I was assigned to the Waffen-SS but was never involved in any crime. Besides, I always felt the need to write about my experiences in a larger context one day. This has only developed recently, now that I have overcome my inner aversion to writing an autobiography in the first place, specifically one having to do with my younger years. "
Gunter Grass
Writing
Crime
Always
" Auschwitz speaks against even a right to self-determination that is enjoyed by all other peoples because one of the preconditions for the horror, besides other, older urges, was a strong and united Germany. "
Gunter Grass
Right
Strong
Horror
" Memory likes to play hide-and-seek, to crawl away. It tends to hold forth, to dress up, often needlessly. Memory contradicts itself; pedant that it is, it will have its way. "
Gunter Grass
Dress
Will
Way
" Often I had to imagine the things I needed. I learned very early to read amidst noise. And so I started writing and drawing at an early age. "
Gunter Grass
Drawing
Noise
Writing
" Our minds aren't bound by a chronological corset. When thinking and dreaming, past, present and future are mixed up. That's also possible for a writer. "
Gunter Grass
Thinking
Future
Minds
" Art is uncompromising and life is full of compromises. "
Gunter Grass
Art
Full
Life
" I catch myself judging myself as that 13-year-old boy, who, of course, rightfully points out that he is only a child. And my membership - well, I was drafted into the Waffen-SS and didn't exactly volunteer, which was just as idiotic. I wanted to be on the submarines and then ended up with the Waffen-SS. "
Gunter Grass
Myself
Volunteer
Boy
" I think it's a shame that we have 'Bild' like you have the 'Sun'. Now serious newspapers like 'FAZ' and 'Spiegel' use a bit of the tone of 'Bild.' This is terrible. "
Gunter Grass
Shame
Serious
Now
" It is a wonderful thing in the process of writing when such paper characters are first sketched, and, when one is doing good work, from a certain point in time they come alive and start contradicting the author as well. "
Gunter Grass
Good
Writing
Work
" My relationship with Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm reaches far back into my childhood. I grew up with Grimm's fairy tales. I even saw a theater production of 'Tom Thumb' during Advent at the State Theater in Danzig, which my mother took me to see. "
Gunter Grass
Me
Mother
Childhood
" Writers know that sometimes things are there in the drawer for decades before they finally come out and you are capable of writing about them. "
Gunter Grass
You
Writing
Know
" I had an uncle who was a postal official at the Polish post office in Gdansk. He was one of the defenders of the Polish postal service and, after it capitulated, was shot by the Germans under the provisions of martial law. Suddenly he was no longer a member of the family, and we were no longer allowed to play with his children. "
Gunter Grass
Children
Service
Uncle
" People change with time. There are things that happened to a person in his childhood and years later they seem to him alien and strange. I am trying to decipher that child. Sometimes he is a stranger to me. When you think about when you were 14, don't you feel a certain alienation? "
Gunter Grass
Time
Me
I Am
" I was brought up Catholic and know the stench of the Catholic Church. I moved away from religion early, but the impression remains. "
Gunter Grass
Up
Away
Church
" I can only write a book like 'The Tin Drum' or 'From the Diary of a Snail' at a special period of my life. The books came about because of how I felt and thought at the time. "
Gunter Grass
Life
Time
Like
" With drawing, I am acutely aware of creating something on a sheet of paper. It is a sensual act, which you cannot say about the act of writing. In fact, I often turn to drawing to recover from the writing. "
Gunter Grass
I Am
Writing
Turn
" I remember when I was writing 'The Tin Drum,' I had the totally misguided idea of giving Oskar Matzerath a sister, and he just wouldn't have it. There was no space for a sister, yet I had the character of the sister in my head. In fact I used her in later novels, in 'Cat and Mouse' and 'Dog Years,' Tulla Pokriski. "
Gunter Grass
Dog
Space
Writing
" The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open. "
Gunter Grass
Keep
Mouth
Job
" In general, I agree with Jacob Grimm and feel that we ought to permit changes and uncontrolled growth in language. Even though that also allows potentially threatening new words to develop, language needs the chance to constantly renew itself. "
Gunter Grass
Changes
Chance
Words
" When I am working on an epic-length book, the writing process is fairly long. It takes from four to five years to get through all the drafts. The book is done when I am exhausted. "
Gunter Grass
Writing
Book
Done
" Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand. "
Gunter Grass
Understand
Hard
Same
" I have found that words that are loaded with pathos and create a seductive euphoria are apt to promote nonsense. "
Gunter Grass
Apt
Words
Seductive
" Information networks straddle the world. Nothing remains concealed. But the sheer volume of information dissolves the information. We are unable to take it all in. "
Gunter Grass
World
Nothing
Information
" Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper. "
Gunter Grass
Passion
Accusation
Art
" Melancholy has ceased to be an individual phenomenon, an exception. It has become the class privilege of the wage earner, a mass state of mind that finds its cause wherever life is governed by production quotas. "
Gunter Grass
Become
Class
Life
" The European Union arose on an economic foundation, and it turns out that even this is not a solid base. Cultural identity has been neglected. "
Gunter Grass
Economic
Foundation
Identity
" I belonged to the generation that grew up under National Socialism, and was blinded and led astray - and allowed itself to be led astray. "
Gunter Grass
Generation
Led
National