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
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
How do we prevent Iran developing an atomic bomb, when, on the American side, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not recognised as a war crime? – Gunter Grass
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
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
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
As a child I was a great liar. Fortunately my mother liked my lies. I promised her marvelous things. – Gunter Grass
If we take into account the existence of our planet, we have to recognise that we are guests that spend a short and very determined period in this world, and all we leave behind is nuclear waste. – Gunter Grass
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
What I do is sometimes – at least in Germany – met with wounding campaigns. I always face the question: should I grow myself a thick skin and ignore it, or should I let myself be wounded? I’ve decided to be wounded, since, if I grew a thick skin, there are other things I wouldn’t feel any more. – Gunter Grass
We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place. – 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, when there were few or no alternatives. – Gunter Grass
I have found that words that are loaded with pathos and create a seductive euphoria are apt to promote nonsense. – Gunter Grass
I don’t believe in writing at night because it comes too easily. When I read it in the morning it’s not good. I need daylight to begin. Between nine and ten o’clock I have a long breakfast with reading and music. – Gunter Grass
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
If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle – absolute busyness – then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy – and without consciousness. – Gunter Grass
Everybody knows how fallible memory can sometimes be. You remember certain fragments precisely, but as soon as you try to join the fragments together, for a story, there is a certain – not falsification, but a shifting. – Gunter Grass
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
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
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
I did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, but was, as were thousands of my year group, conscripted. I did not then know as a 17-year-old that it was a criminal unit. I thought it was an elite unit. – Gunter Grass
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
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
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
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
