Gunter Grass

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

I'm always astonished by a forest. It makes me realise that the fantasy of nature is much larger than my own fantasy. I still have things to learn.

Writers know that sometimes things are there in the drawer for decades before they finally come out and you are capable of writing about them.

All the important drawings I do myself. Every single character is also done by me.

It is often in the name of cultural integrity as well as social stability and national security that democratic reforms based on human rights are resisted by authoritarian governments.

The thing about great poetry is we have no defenses against it.