One of the mistakes the Germans made ... was that they were not brave enough to be afraid.
Gunter GrassI did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, but was, as were thousands of my year group, conscripted. I did not then know as a 17-year-old that it was a criminal unit. I thought it was an elite unit.
Gunter GrassWriters know that sometimes things are there in the drawer for decades before they finally come out and you are capable of writing about them.
Gunter GrassIf work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle - absolute busyness - then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy - and without consciousness.
Gunter Grass