Gunter Grass Quotes

When I first came out, I was a film student, and my mom sewed clothes. I was already doing a million things then, whatever it took to survive. If I had to braid someone's hair to get one pound for my lunch money, that's what I did.

They can put me in a jungle. Still, I can create.

I learned at an early age that I could make the things that I wanted. That's a very powerful thing to realize as a kid. LEGOs were a key part of that.

I often think I am a better person because I lived for many years of my life with a flashlight. I have developed skills I did not think were possible - bathing with a cup of water by candlelight, for instance, and writing a story with a headlamp on.

But I love the idea - whether it's in my work or where I live - exploring new frontier, and I like putting myself in strange places and trying to survive and figure things out and gather up an infrastructure. I like knowing that I could figure out a way to live anywhere.

There is something to be said for people who have to work hard, be creative, produce what they have with little - or no - means. Those of us from poor homes have the advantage of thinking for ourselves and of knowing that when times get hard, things could always be worse.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

As artists, I think that one of the good qualities we have is that we're imaginative. We're resourceful. We like challenges.

Since I was younger I've been making the best out of nothing.

The important thing isn't the house. It's the ability to make it. You carry that in your brains and in your hands, wherever you go... It's one thing to carry your life wherever you go. Another thing to always go looking for it somewhere else.

One of the things that I was always, and still am, is quite resourceful.

Simply, the majority of the most interesting filmmakers are the ones confronted with difficult situations. Their creativity blows a hole in the wall and lets in the light.

I'm not a normal director. You can't look at me that way. What's kept me alive is my technical skill at doing other things.

One day, my bike tire broke miles from home and I found a way to fix it. That's what I learned: Even if you don't have all the tools, you can improvise.

Wherever the wind blows me, I'll go! My eventual goal is to have enough experience to produce something on my own.

I think if you have an eye and the ability and the confidence as a designer, you can turn your hand to anything.

Not being given everything encourages you to create... That was one of the first steps for me learning to invent things.

I used to make everything myself. I used to do my own hair, make my own costumes, write my own jokes, and write my own songs. There were definitely some days where I had to choose between having tights that didn't have holes in them or having to buy makeup or something I needed for a show.

I can't remember exactly the first thing I wrote, but one of the stories, was about a pilot whose plane crashed on a desert island, and the only other life on the island was a brown cow with yellow spots. The cow had... to survive, had taught itself to eat and get nutriments from sand. I guess, I've always been interested in adaptability and taking whatever life hands you and running with it.

One of the most important things a person can learn to do is to make something out of whatever he or she happens to have at the moment.

There's a key for every door, and if you can't find it, you can make one. That's always an option.

Style has a profound meaning to Black Americans. If we can’t drive, we will invent walks and the world will envy the dexterity of our feet. If we can’t have ham, we will boil chitterlings; if we are given rotten peaches, we will make cobblers; if given scraps, we will make quilts; take away our drums, and we will clap our hands. We prove the human spirit will prevail. We will take what we have to make what we need. We need confidence in our knowledge of who we are.

All day long, I'm creative, and the second I get a little tired of any given medium, I just shut that area down and go to the next room. I just go do something else.

Some folks believe that hardship breeds artistic creativity. I don't buy it. One can put up with poverty for a while when one is young, but it will inevitably wear a person down.

The sum total of all my stop-starts have made me less concerned about the future. I'm just aware now that I'll always land on my feet somehow.