German - Author | October 16, 1927 - April 13, 2015
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
ChangeTimeChildhoodI AmChildMe
I'm always astonished by a forest. It makes me realise that the fantasy of nature is much larger than my own fantasy. I still have things to learn.
NatureMeLearnForestMy OwnOwn
Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper.
PassionArtFightBlackWhitePaper
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?
WarAmericanCrimeAtomic BombSide
Homeland is something one becomes aware of only through its loss.
LossThroughSomethingOnlyAware
I have heard my fill of hurtful words. I think it's especially egregious when citizens like me, who point out abuses in their country, are referred to as 'do-gooders.' This is how a phrase that can be used to stop an argument dead becomes part of common usage.
WordsMeThinkCountryStopDead
We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.
GrowthFutureStatisticsPlace
My sister and I did not have our own rooms, or even a place to ourselves. In the living room, beyond the two windows, was a little corner where my books were kept, and other thing - my watercolors and so on. Often I had to imagine the things I needed. I learned very early to read amidst noise.
SisterEarlyPlaceWindowsLiving
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.
WorkGoodTimeWritingStartDoing
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.
IdentityFoundationOutEconomic
How did it happen that an enlightened country like Germany was pulled into Nazism? That question has occupied me since 'The Tin Drum,' my first book. The story also shows that we can never know how a person's life will unfold; there is no guarantee that a person will do what is right and avoid what is not right.
LifeMeBookStoryCountryPerson
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.
WorldShortExistenceGuestsLeave
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