Werner Herzog

"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."

"If you switch on television it's just ridiculous and its destructive. It kills us. And talk shows will kill us. They kill our language. So we have to declare holy war against what we see every single …"

"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."

"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."

"Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates."