“Sometimes bad luck hits you like in an ancient Greek tragedy, and it’s not your own making. When you have a plane crash, it’s not your fault.”
― Werner Herzog
“Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.”
― Werner Herzog
“You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn’t mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that’s what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia.”
― Werner Herzog
“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m not an interviewer. I have conversations.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m not an activist.”
― Werner Herzog
“Facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.”
― Werner Herzog
“I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.”
― Werner Herzog
“If you do not have an absolutely clear vision of something, where you can follow the light to the end of the tunnel, then it doesn’t matter whether you’re bold or cowardly, or whether you’re stupid or intelligent. Doesn’t get you anywhere.”
― Werner Herzog
“I prefer to be alive, so I’m cautious about taking risks.”
― Werner Herzog
“I think there are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there’s insecurity, collapse of financial systems – that’s where film noir always hits fertile ground.”
― Werner Herzog
“Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.”
― Werner Herzog
“I despise formal restaurants. I find all of that formality to be very base and vile. I would much rather eat potato chips on the sidewalk.”
― Werner Herzog
“Yes, the pyramids have been built, but if you give me 300,000 disciplined men and give me 30 years, I could build a bigger one.”
― Werner Herzog
“The universe is monstrously indifferent to the presence of man.”
― Werner Herzog
“I think psychology and self-reflection is one of the major catastrophes of the twentieth century.”
― Werner Herzog
“I travel without barely any luggage. Just a second set of underwear and binoculars and a map and a toothbrush.”
― Werner Herzog
“Life on our planet has been a constant series of cataclysmic events, and we are more suitable for extinction than a trilobite or a reptile. So we will vanish. There’s no doubt in my heart.”
― Werner Herzog
“Ambition is to be the fastest runner on this planet, to be the first on the South Pole, which is a grotesque perversion of ambition. It’s an ego trip, and I’m not on an ego trip. I don’t have ambitions – I have a vision.”
― Werner Herzog
“I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.”
― Werner Herzog
“Film should be looked at straight on; it is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.”
― Werner Herzog
“I never have searched for a subject. They always just come along. They never come by way of decision-making. They just haunt me. I can’t get rid of them. I did not invite them.”
― Werner Herzog
“I know whenever it comes to be really dysfunctional and vile and base and hostile on screen, I’m good at that!”
― Werner Herzog
“There are certainly laws and elements that make a film more accessible to mainstream audiences. If you’ve got Tom Cruise as a strongman, I’m sure it would have larger audiences, but it wouldn’t have the same substance.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m not a journalist; I’m a poet.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m a very professional man. I’m not out for the experience of adventure.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m simply not afraid. It’s not in my dictionary of behaviour.”
― Werner Herzog
“I like and I love everything that has to do with cinema: writing, directing, editing, creating music, and even acting.”
― Werner Herzog
“The universe is not harmonious: you know that by looking outside.”
― Werner Herzog
“Why go to Antarctica, why do a film like ‘Grizzly Man’? It’s the sheer joy of storytelling – it’s the urge.”
― Werner Herzog
“I live my life outside of the glitz and glamour of the red carpet events, and so you’ll never see me there. I’m never at parties.”
― Werner Herzog
“Perhaps I seek certain utopian things, space for human honour and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist yet, dreamed landscapes.”
― Werner Herzog
“I don’t spend sleepless nights over getting very bad reviews.”
― Werner Herzog
“I have a great map of the Tibesti Mountains in the southern Sahara or Northern Chad. It’s a dream of mine to go there, but it’s such a volatile area, you have to be prudent.”
― Werner Herzog
“Let’s put it this way: art house theaters are vanishing. They have almost disappeared completely, and that means there’s a shift in what audiences want to see. And they have to be aware of that and be realistic. It’s as simple as that.”
― Werner Herzog
“I cannot work fast enough. I cannot cope fast enough, really. And just releasing a film is hard.”
― Werner Herzog
“Technology has a great advantage in that we are capable of creating dinosaurs and show them on the screen even though they are extinct 65 million years. All of a sudden, we have a fantastic tool that is as good as dreams are.”
― Werner Herzog
“You should look straight at a film; that’s the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m politically interested, but I have no particular talent as a political beast, stepping out and running for office.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m not into digital marketing, downloading, or streaming – I’ve always been a man of the theaters.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m not very eager to sit and look at my films all the time.”
― Werner Herzog
“I’m the last one who would do self-analysis.”
― Werner Herzog
“I find it interesting that there are impostors out on the Internet pretending to be Werner Herzog.”
― Werner Herzog
“If an actor knows how to milk a cow, I always know it will not be difficult to be in business with him.”
― Werner Herzog
“I could not become an American citizen. I would not like to become a citizen of a country that has capital punishment.”
― Werner Herzog
“I think the worst that can happen in filmmaking is if you’re working with a storyboard. That kills all intuition, all fantasy, all creativity.”
― Werner Herzog
“You should bear in mind that almost all my documentaries are feature films in disguise.”
― Werner Herzog
“I have nothing against 3D films but I do not need to see them.”
― Werner Herzog
“I work very fast and steadily, and I don’t hardly ever notice that I’m working. It feels like just breathing or walking when I do films.”
― Werner Herzog
“I do other sorts of things. I act in other people’s movies. I direct operas. I write books.”
― Werner Herzog
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