Werner Herzog Quotes

We ought to be grateful that the Universe out there knows no smile.

Nature is monumentally indifferent.

I love nature but against my better judgment.

Of course, as a German, I wouldn't like to tell the American people how to handle their criminal justice.

You can't have a helicopter fly over boiling lava. It would've exploded from the heat, and is just way too dangerous. The pilot of a helicopter would've flatly refused anyway.

If you want to do a film, steal a camera, steal raw stock, sneak into a lab and do it!

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.

In Germany, you would be hanged if you cracked a joke about Hitler and you would be killed by the state if you were insane in a project of euthanasia.

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.

I like to direct landscapes just as I like to direct actors and animals.

I'm a very professional man. I'm not out for the experience of adventure.

In a way, I managed to get the deepest things, the best things out of people. That's why I'm a filmmaker. If you don't have it in you, you'd better do something else.

Tourism is a mortal sin.

Along with this rapid growth of forms of communication at our disposal - be it fax, phone, email, internet or whatever - human solitude will increase in direct proportion.

I think psychology and self-reflection is one of the major catastrophes of the twentieth century.

Film is not analysis, it is the agitation of mind; cinema comes from the country fair and the circus, not from art and academicism.

If I had to climb into hell and wrestle the devil himself for one of my films, I would do it.

I went to volcanoes where I knew that there was a lot of mythology around them; there was something like the creation of gods and monsters and demons.

Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue.

I don't care whether the person is guilty or not guilty. It's not my business to establish guilt or innocence. It's a court of law that does that and a jury does that, but not me.

The collapse of the stellar universe will occur - like creation - in grandiose splendor.

Strangely enough, there's this mythology sprouting out that I cannot stop.

[This kind of strange mythology about me.] I've pulled a huge steamboat over a mountain; I've done a feature film with all the actors acting under hypnosis - things that are very unusual.

The power of a volcano when it erupts is so evident, so visible, so palpable.

If you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.

I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.

We have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.

I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature.

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.

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

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.

I'm a very circumspect and prudent person, and I eliminate danger as far as it can be done.

I think I would be a good villain in a James Bond movie.

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

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.

I do not recall to [Kim Jong-un], but it was complex. "Dear young leader of the people and chairman of the joint military commission" or something like that.

I have made 70 or so films. In all my films not a single actor, a single extra, was hurt. Not one. So statistics are on my side when I say I'm clinically sane.

It's very strange, for example, in North Korea where the volcano at the Chinese border is some sort of the mythical birthplace of the Korean people.

I find it interesting that there are impostors out on the Internet pretending to be Werner Herzog.

I'm not into digital marketing, downloading, or streaming - I've always been a man of the theaters.

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.

If an actor knows how to milk a cow, I always know it will not be difficult to be in business with him.

I prefer to be alive, so I'm cautious about taking risks.

You can fight a rumour only with an even wilder rumour.

Get used to the bear behind you.

Hold firm to your vision but don't be a tyrant on set.

I'm not into the culture of complaint. I roll up my sleeves and somehow I get it together.

It's not because nature is angry, it's rather that we are stupid. We're not doing the right thing with our planet.

Perseverance has kept me going over the years. Things rarely happen overnight. Filmmakers should be prepared for many years of hard work. The sheer toil can be healthy and exhilarating.

I could not become an American citizen. I would not like to become a citizen of a country that has capital punishment.