I know whenever it comes to be really dysfunctional and vile and base and hostile on screen, I'm good at that!

Technology has a great advantage in that we are capable of creating dinosaurs and show them on the screen even though they are extinct 65 million years. All of a sudden, we have a fantastic tool that is as good as dreams are.

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

Let's put it this way: art house theaters are vanishing. They have almost disappeared completely, and that means there's a shift in what audiences want to see. And they have to be aware of that and be realistic. It's as simple as that.

I know whenever it comes to be really dysfunctional and vile and base and hostile on screen, I'm good at that!

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

Facts sometimes have a strange and bizarre power that makes their inherent truth seem unbelievable.

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.

There are certainly laws and elements that make a film more accessible to mainstream audiences. If you've got Tom Cruise as a strongman, I'm sure it would have larger audiences, but it wouldn't have the same substance.

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 have ambitions - I have a vision.

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

Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.

I could not become an American citizen. I would not like to become a citizen of a country that has capital punishment.

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

I have nothing against 3D films but I do not need to see them.

I like and I love everything that has to do with cinema: writing, directing, editing, creating music, and even acting.

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.

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 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.

I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.

I travel without barely any luggage. Just a second set of underwear and binoculars and a map and a toothbrush.

I'm not an interviewer. I have conversations.

I'm not into digital marketing, downloading, or streaming - I've always been a man of the theaters.

I'm simply not afraid. It's not in my dictionary of behaviour.

If an actor knows how to milk a cow, I always know it will not be difficult to be in business with him.

If you do not have an absolutely clear vision of something, where you can follow the light to the end of the tunnel, then it doesn't matter whether you're bold or cowardly, or whether you're stupid or intelligent. Doesn't get you anywhere.

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.

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

Sometimes bad luck hits you like in an ancient Greek tragedy, and it's not your own making. When you have a plane crash, it's not your fault.

You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn't mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that's what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia.

You should bear in mind that almost all my documentaries are feature films in disguise.

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.

What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.

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.

The first play I ever saw - I was in junior high school - was a high school production of Noel Coward's 'Blithe Spirit,' which seemed to me absolutely magical.

It's only through Christ that we can take full advantage of God's mercy and forgiveness through repentance in Jesus' name.

Advertising is the edge of what people know how to do and of human experience and it explains the latest ways progress has changed us to ourselves.

In the early days of the New England colonies, no more embarrassing or hampering condition, no greater temporal ill, could befall any adult Puritan than to be unmarried.

It's pathetic to have regrets about fashion. Things to do with my life, yes, I have regrets there.

My friend once sculpted me a bust of Admiral Ackbar from 'Star Wars.' He's my favourite character in the films after Han Solo. He's that goldfish-type alien in the white costume. 'It's a trap!' I'm a big geek.

I've thought about what is an alternative word to feminism. There isn't one. It's a perfectly good word. And it can't be changed.

Ethics reform is about restoring the public trust. When that is in doubt, nothing is more important than restoring it.

Linguistic philosophers continue to argue that probably music is not a language, that is in the philosophical debate. Another point of view is to say that music is a very profound language.

There are grander and more sublime landscapes - to me. There are more compelling cultures. But what appeals to me about central Montana is that the combination of landscape and lifestyle is the most compelling I've seen on this earth. Small mountain ranges and open prairie, and different weather, different light, all within a 360-degree view.

Nobody works as hard for his money as the man who marries it.

I'm a deeply broken person, and broken institutions fascinate me.

Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.

I love writing books - I really do. If I could just quit everything and work on a book every day, I would love that most.