Gunter Grass

“Gespräche verhindern Taten.”

— Günter Grass

Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.

— Gunter Grass

Everything bigger than life attracts a crowd.

— Gunter Grass

Art is hard for a puritan to understand.

— Gunter Grass

“Thus my task was destruction.”

— Günter Grass

“my incessantly syllable-excreting mind”

— Günter Grass

I am not faithful but I am attached.

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

I've always been surrounded by children - never bothered by their noise.

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

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

— 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

Homeland is something one becomes aware of only through its loss.

— Gunter Grass

No idea stays pure. Even the flowering of art isn't pure. And the sun has spots.

— Gunter Grass

“And so Yorick did not become a good citizen, but a Hamlet, a fool.”

— Günter Grass

Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to…

— Gunter Grass

I was brought up Catholic and know the stench of the Catholic Church. I moved away from religion early, but the impression…

— Gunter Grass

“We struck up a conversation, but took pains to keep to small talk at first. We touched on the most trivial of…

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

When Satan's not in the mood, virtue triumphs. Hasn't even Satan a right not to be in the mood once in a…

— Gunter Grass

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

— Gunter Grass

Believing: it means believing in our own lies. And I can say that I am grateful that I got this lesson very…

— Gunter Grass

Memory likes to play hide-and-seek, to crawl away. It tends to hold forth, to dress up, often needlessly. Memory contradicts itself; pedant…

— 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

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 remember when I was writing 'The Tin Drum,' I had the totally misguided idea of giving Oskar Matzerath a sister, and…

— Gunter Grass

Lies that do not hurt, which are different from lies that protect oneself or hurt another person. That is not my business.…

— 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

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

— Gunter Grass

Love That’s it: The cashless commerce. The blanket always too short. The loose connexion. To search behind the horizon. To brush fallen…

— Gunter Grass

“Because men are killing the forests the fairy tales are running away. The spindle doesn't know whom to prick, the little girl's…

— Gunter Grass

“We were convinced that she looked on with indifference if she noticed us at all. Today I know that everything watches, that…

— Günter Grass

“What more shall I say: born under light bulbs, deliberately stopped growing at age of three, given drum, sang glass to pieces,…

— Gunter Grass

“The god of unreflecting drunkenness advised me to take no reading matter at all, or if I absolutely insisted on reading matter,…

— Günter Grass

“Don't be so hard on yourself, as if you'd been trapped and sealed in amber. Since you passed away I've been following…

— Günter Grass

“What did the onion juice do? It did what the world and the sorrows of the world could not do: it brought…

— Günter Grass

So I have no grounds to complain; on the contrary, writers should consider the condition of permanent controversiality to be invigorating, part…

— Gunter Grass