Donald Carroll & Edward Lucie-Smith, Movements in modern art, New York, Horizon Press, 1973, p. 62.

Merz was an invented word : bau is of course the german word for « build » . He was a bit like a caddis worm. You know, the caddis worm lives in the pond or the streams and gradually builds a shell around itself from the materials which it finds. If you put a caddis worm in a tank full of beads, te nit will build itself a tube of nothing but beads. Schwitters had this complusion to build around himself this very strange environment which was the reflection of his own fantasies.