I was assigned to the Waffen-SS but was never involved in any crime. Besides, I always felt the need to write about my experiences in a larger context one day. This has only developed recently, now that I have overcome my inner aversion to writing an autobiography in the first place, specifically one having to do with my younger years.

Students who don't want to get anywhere are sure to get somewhere.

Whenever there has been talk of exterminating rats, others, who were not rats, have been exterminated.

Art is uncompromising, and life is full of compromises.

Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand.

The patience of poverty. In rice fields, backs bent forever. Amazing, man outoxens the oxen and still smiles. The mystery of India, say Indologists.

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.