Gunter Grass
Gunter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grasswas a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 October 1927
CountryGermany
artificial certain cultivated face including keeps literary plant test writer
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.
art flowering stays
No idea stays pure. Even the flowering of art isn't pure. And the sun has spots.
art black finish white
Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is a fight to the finish between black charcoal and white paper.
art puritan art-is
Art is hard for a puritan to understand.
artist desire conquer
[To be an artist,] this desire to conquer all with images.
art compromise life-is
Art is uncompromising, and life is full of compromises.
art puritan irrational
Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand.
crush art passion
Art is accusation, expression, passion. Art is black charcoal crushing white paper.
aware cannot recover sensual sheet turn
With drawing, I am acutely aware of creating something on a sheet of paper. It is a sensual act, which you cannot say about the act of writing. In fact, I often turn to drawing to recover from the writing.
fairly five takes
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.
against age altogether begins life literary memory observe plays principle reinvent tend terms time tricks
Over the years, I had something in principle against autobiographical writing altogether because memory plays tricks on us, and we also tend to reinvent ourselves. But there comes an age when one begins to observe life, and there are things that need time to mature, also in terms of literary form.
amidst beyond books corner early imagine learned
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.
alive author certain characters good paper point process start time wonderful work
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.
account behind determined existence guests leave nuclear period recognise short spend
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.