Werner Herzog

“Ambition is to be the fastest runner on this planet, to be the first on the South Pole, which is a grotesque perversion of ambition. It's an ego trip, and I'm not on an ego trip. I don't hav...”

“I despise formal restaurants. I find all of that formality to be very base and vile. I would much rather eat potato chips on the sidewalk.”

“I live my life outside of the glitz and glamour of the red carpet events, and so you'll never see me there. I'm never at parties.”

“The universe is not harmonious: you know that by looking outside.”

“I'm not an interviewer. I have conversations.”

“Perhaps I seek certain utopian things, space for human honour and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist yet, dreamed landscapes.”

“Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness.”

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

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

“Yes, the pyramids have been built, but if you give me 300,000 disciplined men and give me 30 years, I could build a bigger one.”

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

“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.”

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

“I don't spend sleepless nights over getting very bad reviews.”

“I work very fast and steadily, and I don't hardly ever notice that I'm working. It feels like just breathing or walking when I do films.”

“I think the worst that can happen in filmmaking is if you're working with a storyboard. That kills all intuition, all fantasy, all creativity.”

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

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