Günter Grass to Rushdie

Salman Rushdie in Joseph Anton: 

He was remembering  something Günter Grass had once said to him about losing: that it taught you more profound lessons that winning did. The victors believed themselves and their world views justified and validated and learned nothing. The losers had to re-evaluate everything they had thought to be true and worth fighting for and so had a chance of learning, the hard way, the deepest lessons life had to teach.