The land here is being carelessly killed. (pp 54) - Werner Herzog

I am someone who takes everything very literally. I simply do not understand irony, a defect I have had ever since I was able to think independently.

With the point of a knife, our mother scratched a mark in it for each day, Monday to Sunday, allowing about a slice of bread for each of us. When hunger got to be very bad, we were each given a piece from the next day's ration because my mother hoped something might turn up in the meantime, but generally the bread was finished by Friday, and Saturdays and Sundays were particularly bad. My deepest memory of my mother, burned into my brain, is a moment when my brother and I were clutching at her skirts, whimpering with hunger. With a sudden jolt, she freed herself, spun round, and she had a face full of an anger and despair that I have never seen before or since. She said, perfectly calmly: "Listen, boys, if I could cut it out of my ribs, I would cut it out of my ribs, but I can't. All right?" At that moment, we learned not to wail. The so-called culture of complaint disgusts me.

Amos Vogel was a mentor, a guiding light for me. In his presence, you always rose. But his importance to me is of minor significance. What is significant is that with him an entire epoch ends. The Last Lion has left us.
I am still not capable – or rather unwilling – to understand the fact that Amos passed away, because a man like him cannot be dead. His traces are everywhere.

(on the passing of Amos Vogel, his friend for more than 45 years)