Quotes from Werner Herzog

Women have a very good sense for seeing instantly what constitutes a good man. Not physically. The physical strength is only a small side of it.

I cannot work fast enough. I cannot cope fast enough, really. And just releasing a film is hard.

Film should be looked at straight on; it is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.

I do other sorts of things. I act in other people's movies. I direct operas. I write books.

I am a product of my failures.

I think it is a quest of literature throughout the ages to describe the human condition.

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)

Americans believe that they are normal, that they make sense, and that the rest of the world is exotic. They do not seem to understand that they are the most exotic people in the world right now.

Truth itself wanders through the forests.

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.

In the evening I finished reading a book, and because I was feeling so alone, I buried the book on the edge of the forest with a borrowed spade.

For such an advanced civilization as ours to be without images that are adequate to it is as serious a defect as being without memory.

Nothing I have witnessed, from lava to crustacean, assailed me liked the caked debris haunting that small plastic soap hammock in the smaller of the bathrooms. Nausea is not a sufficient word.

The universe is monstrously indifferent to the presence of man.

One more thing: Philippe, you are not a coward-so what I want to hear from you is the ecstatic truth about the twin towers.

I am so used to plunging into the unknown that any other surroundings and form of existence strike me as exotic and unsuitable for human beings.

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

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

A perfect morning; in perfect harmony with myself I'm walking briskly uphill.... For once I didn't notice that I was walking, all the way up to the mountaintop forest I was absorbed in deep thought. Perfect clarity and freshness in the air, up further there's some snow. The tangerines make me completely euphoric.

I am fascinated by the idea that our civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.

Ein jüngerer, intelligent aussehender Mann mit langem Haar fragte mich, ob Filmen, bzw. Gefilmtwerden, Schaden anrichten könne, ob es eine Person vernichten könne. In meinem Herzen war die Antwort ja, aber ich sagte nein.

Let me speak of Son of Sam. He has been called a mad dog. He is not a mad dog ?- he is a mad human being, perhaps only a step removed from the rest of us. One has to acknowledge him as a human being and to respect his dignity even in his madness. Otherwise, there is the danger that people may start to kill each other like mad dogs.

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.

Film is not analysis, it is the agitation of the mind.