I didn't choose solitude.

In a way, everything concerning a movie leaves me cold.

Sometimes my heart hurts so much, I beat it with my fists. I try to run. But you cannot run from this. It waits for you. Even when you think you have escaped it, it is there.

I could be with a woman in a bed, for weeks even, and it would seem to me like three seconds. Or 300 years.

Whenever I was with a woman, I always sort of want another one. So there was always another one. I can't explain this.

Why have I had this life? If I knew, I wouldn't have done it.

I am dying of hunger.

But words - words are not enough!

I have to shoot without any breaks. I yell at Herzog and hit him. I have to fight for every sequence. I wish Herzog would catch the plague, more than ever.

One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real.

You leap over the wall of one ghetto and find yourself in another ghetto.

I don't need anybody to tell me how to be alive.

I sell myself for the highest price. Exactly like a prostitute. There is no difference.

About 25 years ago, I was in an apartment, and next door, they put on the radio, so I struck the wall with my fist, but they did not put the radio down. I took a tool and banged until I made a hole through the wall. It was like a comedy movie.

The ultimate acting is to destroy yourself.

I make movies for money, exclusively for money.

It is true what Rimbaud said; If you think a book is strong enough, try it at the ocean, in the wind, at the waves. If the book can resist the ocean, then it exists. Otherwise, throw it away.

I didn't choose solitude.

I am your fairy tale. Your dream. Your wishes and desires, and I am your thirst and your hunger and your food and your drink.

I knew there were, in myself, the souls of millions of people who lived centuries ago; not just people but animals, plants, the elements, things, even, matter. All of these exist in me.

Where a beast would have claws, I was born with talent.

Put a bird cage near the window so that the bird can see the sky? It's much better to look than not to, even if it hurts.

When you are there, you are. With words, you aren't.

Once, I took a taxi. I hate those limousines. They stink and their drivers have been driving dead people to the cemeteries.

What do you think, that a dollar in a savings account is freedom? Maybe you have understood nothing I have said.

The dimensions of my feelings are too violent.

The truth is, I can never die. For I will be in everything and see you in everything and watch over you. I am your reaction in the water of a mountain lake.

Fun? There is no fun.

It is the Nobel Prize I want. It's worth $400,000.

You have to protect yourself, your body, your being. You cannot treat it badly; you have to keep it, make as sensitive as possible.

I am not the Jesus of the official church tolerated by those in power. I am not your superstar.

Why do I continue making movies? Making movies is better than cleaning toilets.

You don't need a framework. You need a painting, not a frame.

People who do not see the terrible things therefore do not see the beautiful things, either.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.

It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.

Nothing is more capable of troubling our reason, and consuming our health, than secret notions of jealousy in solitude.

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

The conductor's stand is not a continent of power, but rather an island of solitude.

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign in solitude.

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

Silence and solitude are more distracting to me than chatter and commotion.

Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

We wrote verses that condemned us, with no hope of pardon, to the most bitter solitude.