Everyone is born into a certain era. I wouldn't want to see anyone faced with the circumstances that prevailed at the time, when there were few or no alternatives.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the impact of one's era on individual choices and circumstances.
Gunter Grass highlights the idea that every individual is shaped by the historical context and societal conditions they are born into. He expresses a desire to shield people from the hardships and limitations present during challenging times, emphasizing the importance of recognizing how era-specific circumstances can influence personal opportunities and decisions.
In practice
In a speech about social change, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of historical context in shaping societal issues.
I wept when the muse Ulla bent over me. Blinded by tears I could not prevent her from kissing me, I could not prevent the Muse from giving me that terrible kiss. All of you who have ever been kissed by the Muse will surely understand that Oskar, once branded by that kiss, was condemned to take back the drum he had rejected years before, the drum he had buried in the sand of Sapse Cemetery.
Today I know that all things are watching, that nothing goes unseen, that even wallpaper has a better memory than human beings.
I 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.
Art is uncompromising, and life is full of compromises.
If 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.
I belonged to the generation that grew up under National Socialism, and was blinded and led astray - and allowed itself to be led astray.
This world owes all its forward impulses to people ill at ease.
The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.
Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come.
He who, seeking his own happiness, punishes or kills beings who also long for happiness, will not find happiness after his death.
When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is, 'you like stuff.' Which is not a good insult at all, like, 'you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human conscience.
I know that's the sort of thing people say and I really hate it when people say the sort of things people say. I always think, 'You don't mean that, you just think it sounds good.
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