Die Blechtrommel

Vendor:
Look, if you please, at this extraordinary potato... this swelling, luxuriant flesh, forever conceiving new shapes... and yet so chaste. I love a potato, because it speaks to me.

Agnes Matzerath:
Don't expect me to touch your eels.

Alfred Matzerath:
Don't put on airs.

Agnes Matzerath:
I'll never eat fish again. Certainly not eels.

Alfred Matzerath:
You've always eaten them, and you knew where they came from!

Bebra:
You must join us, you must!

Oskar Matzerath:
You know, Mr. Bebra... to tell the truth, I prefer to be a member of the audience, and let my little art flower in secret.

Bebra:
My dear Oskar, trust an experienced colleague. Our kind must never sit in the audience. Our kind must perform and run the show, or the others will run *us*. The others are coming. They will occupy the fairgrounds, they will stage torchlight parades, build rostrums, fill the rostrums, and from those rostrums preach our destruction.

Oskar Matzerath:
There once was a drummer. His name was Oskar. He lost his poor mama, who had eat to much fish. There was once a credulous people... who believed in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really... the gas man! There was once a toy merchant. His name was Sigismund Markus... and he sold tin drums lacquered red and white. There was once a drummer. His name was Oskar. There was once a toy merchant... whose name was Markus... and he took all the toys in the world away with him.