Gunter Grass Quotes

Today I know that all things are watching, that nothing goes unseen, that even wallpaper has a better memory than human beings. It's not God in his heaven who sees everything. A kitchen chair, a clothes hanger, a half-filled ashtray, or the wooden replica of a woman named Niobe can serve perfectly well as an unforgetting witness to our every deed.

I saw him because I see everything. Easy when no one notices you.

Night hath a thousand eyes.

I watch people constantly.

I am like a security camera ever on the watch. The furtive quality of vision feels to me like an incredibly valuable weapon. Everything I see gets transformed into a private sketch or painting in my mind, stored away for future reference, future evidence, future ammunition.

My Noble Intelligencer …. My Ubiquitous Eyes

We cannot stop what we cannot see.

I try to watch everybody.

He who is invisible sees more clearly, hears more clearly, and is better able to read the thoughts of men.

Out of sight is out of mind.

Swift defined observation to be an old man's memory.

He was there or was not there: not there if I didn't see him.

who is invisible enough to see you

To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.

The torture of being the unseen object, and the constantly observed subject.

If you are wired to your memory, repetitions will happen and redundancy will come; but if you are paying attention, that changes your ability to look at things.

Also, where does your identity come from? Your memory, of course.

When you are in the dark and you can't see anything, something is looking at you seeing everything

For God's sake, keep your eyes open. Notice what's going on around you.

I am interested in the past. Perhaps one of the reasons is we cannot make, cannot change the past. I mean you can hardly unmake the present. But the past after all is merely to say a memory, a dream. You know my own past seems continually changed when I am remembering it, or reading things that are interesting to me.

I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learned to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.

Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.

It's no good operating on eyes if your eyes are asleep.

I never take pictures. Skies are much larger in reminiscences and my friends are much better-looking. Photos crop reality into little squares; instead, I have very good binoculars.

Time is the metre, memory the only plot.