Werner Herzog Quotes

me fascinan las cajetillas de cigarrillos al borde del camino, sobretodo cuando no están estrujadas, entonces se hinchan ligeramente, adquieren cierto aspecto de cadáveres, los cantos ya no están tan definidos y el celofán se empaña desde dentro, es vapor condensado en gotitas de agua por el frío.

I have never been one of those who cares about happiness. Happiness is a strange notion. I am just not made for it. It has never been a goal of mine; I do not think in those terms.

An elderly woman gathering wood, plump and impoverished, tells me about her children one by one, when they were born, when they died. When she becomes aware that I want to go on, she talks three times as fast, shortening destinies, skipping the deaths of three children although adding them later on, unwilling to let even one fate slip away — and this in a dialect that makes it hard for me to follow what she is saying. After the demise of an entire generation of offspring, she would speak no more about herself except to say that she gathers wood, every day; I should have stayed longer.

There is one unvarying constant: everything in the jungle is at pains to strangle everything else in the battle for sunlight. It may be pitch-black at night, but nothing changes the overwhelming, implacable present tense of the jungle.

The two men see pornographic pictures. Strangely coiled naked bodies, performing unchaste acts in groups, in hopeless configurations.

Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.

I said that this must not be, not at this time, German cinema could not do without her now, we would not permit her death.
One solitary, overriding thought: get away from here. People frighten me. Our Eisner mustn't die, she will not die, I won't permit it. She is not dying now because she isn't dying. Not now, no, she is not allowed to. My steps are firm. And now the earth trembles. When I move, a buffalo moves. When I rest, a mountain reposes. She wouldn't dare! She mustn't. She won't. When I'm in Paris she will be alive. She must not die. Later, perhaps, when we allow it.

If you truly love film, I think the healthiest thing to do is not read books on the subject. I prefer the glossy film magazines with their big color photos and gossip columns, or the National Enquirer. Such vulgarity is healthy and safe.

People think we had a love-hate relationship. Well, I did not love him, nor did I hate him. We had mutual respect for each other, even as we both planned each other's murder.

At the market I ate a piece of a grilled monkey — it looked like a naked child.

If I abandon this project I would be a man without dreams and I don't want to live like that: I live my life or I end my life with this project.

at the press conference for the film he impressed everyone with his complete sincerity and innocence. he said he had come to see the sea for the first time and marveled at how clean it was. someone told him that, in fact, it wasn't. 'when the world is emptied of human beings' he said, 'it will become so again

What's really bad is that after acknowledging a wrong decision, I don't have the nerve to turn back, since I'd rather correct myself with another wrong decision.

It's a great metaphor. For what? I don't know to this day. But I know it's a great metaphor.

Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read...if you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.