The danger is to stupidly believe that depicting facts gives us much insight. If facts were the only thing that counted, the telephone directory would be the book of books. Werner Herzog More Quotes by Werner Herzog More Quotes From Werner Herzog There is a fascination about crime, which is understandable, but hardly anyone talks about the families of victims of violent crime and the devastation that is beyond the victim alone. Werner Herzog devastationfascinationcrime I'm a very circumspect and prudent person, and I eliminate danger as far as it can be done. Werner Herzog prudentdonedanger There's more substance in my prose and my poetry than in all my films together. Writing is a more direct way of expressing yourself because, in cinema, you always have finances, organization, actors, technical apparatus and all that stuff coming in between. Werner Herzog organizationtogetherwriting Chauvet Cave is rather like the awakening of the modern human soul or I would say the awakening of modern human culture. Because Neanderthal men who still rode the landscape parallel to the people who did these paintings didn't have culture. There's no evidence of culture, no symbolic depiction, no evidence of music, no evidence of sculptures, no evidence of religious beliefs. Werner Herzog religiousmenpeople When you look at the paintings at Chauvet Cave, they're not primitive or like children's little scribbles, it bursts on the scene fully accomplished and when you look through the faces of cultural history, art history, it has never gotten any better. Werner Herzog childrenlooksart I do whatever pushes me hardest. It's coming at me and I try to... it's like uninvited guest and I have to wrestle them out the door or through the window - get them out and get over with them quickly. Werner Herzog guestsdoorstrying I don't see poetry as something that has to do with too much emotion anyway. It has to do with language. Werner Herzog too-muchemotionlanguage 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. Werner Herzog germanyinsanewould-be This is the birth of the modern human soul. The artists are like us, not like the Neanderthals, who had no culture - and who incidentally were still roaming the landscape at the time the paintings were made. It is striking that there is a distant cultural echo that seems to reach all the way down to us, over dozens of millennia. Werner Herzog echoesartistsoul When I film, there are no emotions. That would be the last thing. Werner Herzog lastsemotionwould-be My non-fiction films are pretty much fiction, or at least close... It's all "movies" for me. I never have searched for a subject. They always just come along. They never come by way of decision-making. They just haunt me. I can't get rid of them. I did not invite them. Werner Herzog decisionwayfiction With actors, normally I don't like to have any conversation about background and about motivations and all this. Werner Herzog motivationactorsconversation As for the "anger" of the volcano, we leave it up to the local populations who create their demons, their gods and their divine punishment. Werner Herzog volcanoespunishmentpopulation It's not because nature is angry, it's rather that we are stupid. We're not doing the right thing with our planet. Werner Herzog our-planetplanetsstupid It was a subject [ volcanoes] that was dormant in me for a long time and it popped up 40 years ago when I made a [short] film on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe about a volcano that was about to explode and a single farmer refused to leave ["La Soufrière"]. Werner Herzog volcanoesislandsyears Truly the issue of death was not for me the governing theme of the film. The opposite. For me, the main subject of the film was healing and how to deal with it, not enough films deal with healing, most films deal with wounding. And it's time to take on this subject of how you forgive and how you forgive yourself because it is not time that heals, that's a lie, you have to do something. Werner Herzog entertainment I think there are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground. Werner Herzog thinkalwaysinsecuritymood The universe is monstrously indifferent to the presence of man. Werner Herzog presencemanindifferentuniverse Life on our planet has been a constant series of cataclysmic events, and we are more suitable for extinction than a trilobite or a reptile. So we will vanish. There's no doubt in my heart. Werner Herzog willdoubtheartlife I'm not an activist. Werner Herzog activist
