German - Author | October 16, 1927 - April 13, 2015
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
TogetherMemoryStoryRememberYou
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.
WritingYouKnowSometimesCapable
I think it's a shame that we have 'Bild' like you have the 'Sun'. Now serious newspapers like 'FAZ' and 'Spiegel' use a bit of the tone of 'Bild.' This is terrible.
SunThinkYouSeriousNowShame
I have often supported Israel, I have often visited the country and want the country to exist and at last find peace with its neighbours.
PeaceFindCountryWantIsraelLast
Auschwitz speaks against even a right to self-determination that is enjoyed by all other peoples because one of the preconditions for the horror, besides other, older urges, was a strong and united Germany.
StrongHorrorRightUnitedAgainst
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.'
HistoryGreatTemptationPossibleUs
A writer must face up to the test of reality, including political reality, and that can't be done if he keeps his distance. A literary style cultivated like a hothouse plant may show a certain artificial purity, but it won't really be pure.
StyleFaceRealityPlantPolitical
Prose, poetry, and drawings stand side by side in a very democratic way in my work.
WorkPoetryStandWaySideProse
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.
I AmWritingBookProcessLongDone
For me, writing, drawing, and political activism are three separate pursuits; each has its own intensity. I happen to be especially attuned to and engaged with the society in which I live. Both my writing and my drawing are invariably mixed up with politics, whether I want them to be or not.
LivePoliticsMeWritingSociety
No idea stays pure. Even the flowering of art isn't pure. And the sun has spots.
ArtSunPureIdeaNo IdeaEven
Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand.
ArtUnderstandHardSamePointless
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