Gunter Grass Quotes

Quotes about:

• The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.

  Gunter Grass

  Jobs, Freedom, Democracies Have

  65 Copy quote

• It makes me realise that the fantasy of nature is much larger than my own fantasy. I still have things to learn.

  Gunter Grass

  Fantasy, Realising, Stills

  "Günter Grass in quotes: 12 of the best", www.theguardian.com. April 13, 2015.

  48 Copy quote

• Melancholy and utopia are heads and tails of the same coin.

  Gunter Grass

  Tails, Coins, Melancholy

  "From The Diary Of A Snail (On Stasis and Progress)". Book by Gunter Grass, 1972.

  13 Copy quote

• 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, Information, Volume

  12 Copy quote

• People have always told tales. Long before humanity learned to write and gradually became literate, everybody told tales to everybody else and everybody listened to everybody else's tales. Before long it became clear that some of the still illiterate storytellers told more and better tales than others, that is, they could make more people believe their lies.

  Gunter Grass

  Lying, Believe, Writing

  27 Copy quote

• On sorrow floats laughter.

  Gunter Grass

  Laughter, Sorrow, Floats

  "Dog Years". Book by Gunter Grass, www.theguardian.com. 1963.

  21 Copy quote

• How easily the routine of sin establishes itself.

  Gunter Grass

  Routine, Sin

  26 Copy quote

• Everything bigger than life attracts a crowd.

  Gunter Grass

  Bigger Than Life, Crowds, Bigger

  7 Copy quote

• After the collapse of socialism, capitalism remained without a rival. This unusual situation unleashed its greedy and - above all - its suicidal power. The belief is now that everything - and everyone - is fair game.

  Gunter Grass

  Suicidal, Games, Rivals

  22 Copy quote

• Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes.

  Gunter Grass

  Things Change, Translators, Translations

  27 Copy quote

• Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is black charcoal crushing white paper.

  Gunter Grass

  Crush, Art, Passion

  6 Copy quote

• One of the mistakes the Germans made ... was that they were not brave enough to be afraid.

  Gunter Grass

  Fear, Mistake, Brave

  7 Copy quote

• Even if surrounded with explanations, Auschwitz can never be grasped.

  Gunter Grass

  Auschwitz, Explanation, Ifs

  "The Boys' Crusade". Book by Paul Fussell (p. 15), September 9, 2003.

  39 Copy quote

• Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.

  Gunter Grass

  Book, Sacred

  "The Tin Drum" by Gunter Grass, translated by Ralph Manheim, Book 1, "Rasputin and the Alphabet", 1961.

  28 Copy quote

• Love That’s it: The cashless commerce. The blanket always too short. The loose connexion. To search behind the horizon. To brush fallen leaves with four shoes and in one’s mind to rub bare feet. To let and rent hearts; or in a room with shower and mirror, in a hired car, bonnet facing the moon, wherever innocence stops and burns its programme, the word in falsetto sounds different and new each time. Today, in front of a box office not yet open, hand in hand crackled the hangdog old man and the dainty old woman. The film promised love.

  Gunter Grass

  Heart, Moon, Men

  21 Copy quote

• And when the sun goes down and the mood comes upon me, I'll watch the play of the colors on the water, yield to the fleetly dissolving images, and turn into pure feeling, all soft and nice.

  Gunter Grass

  Nice, Yield, Color

  26 Copy quote

• It's dangerous to watch staggering butterflies. They have a plan but it has no meaning.

  Gunter Grass

  Butterfly, Watches, Dangerous

  18 Copy quote

• I expected more from literature than from real, naked life.

  Gunter Grass

  Real, Naked, Literature

  18 Copy quote

• As a child I was a great liar. Fortunately my mother liked my lies. I promised her marvelous things.

  Gunter Grass

  Mother, Children, Liars

  "Gunter Grass speaks to Paris Review about art of fiction". Paris Review Interview, www.newsbangladesh.com. April 14, 2015.

  18 Copy quote

• Where man had been, in every place he left, garbage remained. Even in his pursuit of the ultimate truth and quest for his God, he produced garbage. By his garbage, which lay stratum upon stratum, he could always - one had only to dig - be known. For more long-lived than man is his refuse. Garbage alone lives after him.

  Gunter Grass

  Men, Long, Quests

  10 Copy quote

• We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.

  Gunter Grass

  Future, Growth, Environmental Pollution

  "Günter Grass in quotes: 12 of the best", www.theguardian.com. April 13, 2015.

  29 Copy quote

• Art is uncompromising, and life is full of compromises.

  Gunter Grass

  Art, Compromise, Life Is

  25 Copy quote

• I have found that words that are loaded with pathos and create a seductive euphoria are apt to promote nonsense.

  Gunter Grass

  Seductive, Nonsense, Found

  17 Copy quote

• An empty bus hurtles through the starry night Perhaps the driver is singing and happy because he sings.

  Gunter Grass

  Night, Singing, Empty

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Puritan, Irrational

  New Statesman and Society interview, 1990.

  9 Copy quote

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