Werner Herzog

"Ruthless Reviews on Lessons of Darkness"

"Everyone who makes films has to be an athlete to a certain degree because cinema does not come from abstract academic thinking; it comes from your knees and thighs."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"Your film is like your children. You might want a child with certain qualities, but you are never going to get the exact specification right. The film has a privilege to live its own life and develop …"

"By dint of declaration the so-called Cinema Verité is devoid of verité. It reaches a merely superficial truth, the truth of accountants."