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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.

Gunter Grass

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Gunter Grass
Age: 87 †
Born: 1927
Born: October 16
Died: 2015
Died: April 13
Altar Server
Author
Autobiographer
Essayist
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Lyricist
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Playwright
Poet
Printmaker
Danzig
Günter Wilhelm Grass
Günter Graß
Günter Wilhelm Graß
Situation
Greedy
Belief
Collapse
Games
Unusual
Everyone
Socialism
Unleashed
Power
Fairs
Rival
Everything
Fair
Suicidal
Without
Capitalism
Rivals
Game
Remained

More quotes by Gunter Grass

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If Jesus had been a hunchback, they could hardly have nailed him to the cross.
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On sorrow floats laughter.
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Where man had been, in every place he left, garbage remained. Even in his pursuit of the ultimate truth and quest for his God, he produced garbage. By his garbage, which lay stratum upon stratum, he could always - one had only to dig - be known. For more long-lived than man is his refuse. Garbage alone lives after him.
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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.
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One of the mistakes the Germans made ... was that they were not brave enough to be afraid.
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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.
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What makes books - and with them writers - so dangerous that church and state, politburos and the mass media feel the need to oppose them?
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Removed from its more restrictive sense, masturbation has become an expression for everything that has proved, for lack of human contact, to be void of meaning. We have communication problems, suffer from egocentrism and narcissism, are frustrated by information glut and loss of environment we stagnate despite the rising GNP.
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Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.
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Melancholy has ceased to be an individual phenomenon, an exception. It has become the class privilege of the wage earner, a mass state of mind that finds its cause wherever life is governed by production quotas.
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Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand.
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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.
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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.
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[To be an artist,] this desire to conquer all with images.
Gunter Grass
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How easily the routine of sin establishes itself.
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Lies that do not hurt, which are different from lies that protect oneself or hurt another person. That is not my business. But the truth is mostly very boring, and you can help it along with lies. There is no harm in that.
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Who can deny that the environment has been destroyed?
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You are vain and wicked- as a genius should be.
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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.
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...I remain restless and dissatisfied what I knot with my right hand, I undo with my left, what my left hand creates, my right fist shatters
Gunter Grass