153 Quotes by Gunter Grass

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.

Granted: I AM an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there’s a peep-hole in the door, and my keeper’s eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

When Satan’s not in the mood, virtue triumphs. Hasn’t even Satan a right not to be in the mood once in a while?

Art is uncompromising and life is full of compromises.