Gunter Grass

You are vain and wicked- as a genius should be.

— Gunter Grass

I am not faithful but I am attached.

— Gunter Grass

“my incessantly syllable-excreting mind”

— Günter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

“Ignore the misery. Custom invites you to ignore the misery." SHOW YOUR TONGUE”

— Gunter Grass

There must be reasons why we men are so hipped on breasts as if we'd all been weaned too soon.

— Gunter Grass

If Jesus had been a hunchback, they could hardly have nailed him to the cross.

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

Who can deny that the environment has been destroyed?

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

In statistics, what disappears behind rows of numbers is death.

— Gunter Grass

Information networks straddle the world. Nothing remains concealed. But the sheer volume of information dissolves the information. We are unable to take…

— Gunter Grass

I did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, but was, as were thousands of my year group, conscripted. I did not then…

— Gunter Grass

The European Union arose on an economic foundation, and it turns out that even this is not a solid base. Cultural identity…

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

What makes books - and with them writers - so dangerous that church and state, politburos and the mass media feel the…

— Gunter Grass

Everyone is born into a certain era. I wouldn't want to see anyone faced with the circumstances that prevailed at the time,…

— Gunter Grass

“Klepp, however...must have given the cigarette girl a photo unbeknownst to me, because he became engaged to the snippety little thing and…

— Günter Grass

Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper.

— Gunter Grass

In general, I agree with Jacob Grimm and feel that we ought to permit changes and uncontrolled growth in language. Even though…

— Gunter Grass

Melancholy has ceased to be an individual phenomenon, an exception. It has become the class privilege of the wage earner, a mass…

— Gunter Grass

I have heard my fill of hurtful words. I think it's especially egregious when citizens like me, who point out abuses in…

— Gunter Grass

We dance for the pure joy of it. In the kitchen to the record player. Because we've got it in us. All…

— Gunter Grass

I wept when the muse Ulla bent over me. Blinded by tears I could not prevent her from kissing me, I could…

— Gunter Grass

I had an uncle who was a postal official at the Polish post office in Gdansk. He was one of the defenders…

— Gunter Grass

I catch myself judging myself as that 13-year-old boy, who, of course, rightfully points out that he is only a child. And…

— Gunter Grass

“Behind all sorrows in the world Klepp saw a ravenous hunger; all human suffering, he believed, could be cured with a portion…

— Günter Grass

“At the beginning of the semester, Ulla wanted to pose only for the 'new trends' - a flea that Meiter, her Easter…

— Günter Grass

“You can begin a story in the middle and create confusion by striking out boldly, backward and forward. You can be modern,…

— Gunter Grass

“I am not trying to say that a passport photo of himself can cure a gloomy man of a gloom for which…

— Günter Grass

“...there is no such thing as a parttime partisan. Real partisans are partisans always and as long as they live. They put…

— Günter Grass

Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes.

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

[America is] the land where people find whatever they have lost.

— Gunter Grass

Whenever there has been talk of exterminating rats, others, who were not rats, have been exterminated.

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

Art is uncompromising, and life is full of compromises.

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

“You American intellectuals—you want so desperately to feel besieged and persecuted!”

— Günter Grass