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One of the mistakes the Germans made ... was that they were not brave enough to be afraid.

Gunter Grass

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Gunter Grass
Age: 87 †
Born: 1927
Born: October 16
Died: 2015
Died: April 13
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Autobiographer
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Graphic Artist
Illustrator
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Danzig
Günter Wilhelm Grass
Günter Graß
Günter Wilhelm Graß
Afraid
Mistake
Fear
Enough
Made
Germans
Mistakes
Brave

More quotes by Gunter Grass

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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 had an uncle who was a postal official at the Polish post office in Gdansk. He was one of the defenders of the Polish postal service and, after it capitulated, was shot by the Germans under the provisions of martial law. Suddenly he was no longer a member of the family, and we were no longer allowed to play with his children.
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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 does a river like the Vistula carry away with it? Everything that goes to pieces: wood, glass, pencils, pacts ... chairs, bones, and sunsets too. What had long been forgotten rose to memory, floating on its back or stomach, with the help of the Vistula.
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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?
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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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[America is] the land where people find whatever they have lost.
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How easily the routine of sin establishes itself.
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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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Art is hard for a puritan to understand.
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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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On sorrow floats laughter.
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Cemeteries have always had a lure for me. They are well kept, free from ambiguity, logical, virile, and alive. In cemeteries you can summon up courage and arrive at decisions, in cemeteries life takes on distinct contours -- I am not referring to the borders of the graves -- and if you will, a meaning.
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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
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Everything bigger than life attracts a crowd.
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If Jesus had been a hunchback, they could hardly have nailed him to the cross.
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[To be an artist,] this desire to conquer all with images.
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Believing: it means believing in our own lies. And I can say that I am grateful that I got this lesson very early.
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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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Students who don't want to get anywhere are sure to get somewhere.
Gunter Grass