Often he was a joy, and you know, he was one of the few people I ever learned anything from. - Werner Herzog

A fairly young, intelligent-looking man with long hair asked me whether filming or being filmed could do harm, whether it could destroy a person. In my heart the answer was yes, but I said no.

It's an unfinished country. It's still prehistorical. The only thing that is lacking is the dinosaurs here. It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape, and whoever goes too deep into this has his share of that curse, so we are cursed with what we are doing here. It's a land that God, if he exists, has created in anger. It's the only land where creation is unfinished yet.

Academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion. Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates.