"The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open."
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Quote collection
Gunter Grass quotes (page 1 of 4)
76 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"It makes me realise that the fantasy of nature is much larger than my own fantasy. I still have things to learn."
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"Even if surrounded with explanations, Auschwitz can never be grasped."
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"There must be reasons why we men are so hipped on breasts as if we'd all been weaned too soon."
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"We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place."
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"Even bad books are books and therefore sacred."
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"Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes."
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"Art is uncompromising, and life is full of compromises."
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"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."
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"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."
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"How easily the routine of sin establishes itself."
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"An empty bus hurtles through the starry night Perhaps the driver is singing and happy because he sings."
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"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."
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"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."
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"Who can deny that the environment has been destroyed?"
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"On sorrow floats laughter."
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"As a child I was a great liar. Fortunately my mother liked my lies. I promised her marvelous things."
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"I expected more from literature than from real, naked life."
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"It's dangerous to watch staggering butterflies. They have a plan but it has no meaning."
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"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."
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