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Portrait of Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog

(1942) Film Screenwriter Germany

318 quotes in 1491 categories

Werner Herzog notes that when a project has real substance, money will follow like a timid dog with its tail between its legs. He warns that artistic trespassing needs prudence and responsibility. He also believes that our dreams belong to everyone, and the only difference is who can speak them out loud.

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Werner Herzog is a film screenwriter from Germany, best known for Twilight World.

Quick Facts About Werner Herzog

Born: September 5, 1942
Nationality: Germany
Profession: Film Screenwriter
Notable works: Twilight World
Spouse: Lena Herzog

About Werner Herzog

Herzog also works as an actor, opera director and author, and he is regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His movies often follow ambitious characters with impossible dreams or people with unusual talents, and he prefers improvisation and real‑life situations over storyboards. He has won a Silver Bear award, four Cannes Film Festival awards and received an Academy Award nomination for his documentary work.

Awards & Honors

Golden Lion Bayerischer Poetentaler European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award Directors Guild of America Award Rauriser Literaturpreis Alfred P. Sloan Prize Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Q137870547

Quotes by Werner Herzog

I'm not a journalist; I'm a poet.

Journalist

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Get used to the bear behind you.

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I think I'm a prudent filmmaker.

Film

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I'm not an activist.

Activist

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Facts do not constitute truth,

Constitute

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I am a product of my failures,

Failure

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I don't want to travel.

Travel

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Nature is monumentally indifferent.

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Fact creates norms, and truth illumination.

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I wouldn't make a connection between the daily news and volcanoes.

Connections

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We have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.

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I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.

Class

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I am too much into what I'm doing in my work.

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

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When I film, there are no emotions. That would be the last thing.

Cinema

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

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I went to volcanoes where I knew that there was a lot of mythology around them; there was something like the creation…

Creation

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

Bizarre

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There's happens to be a volcano in the vicinity and there's some talk about a volcano as well, so that's the title…

Fire

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James Joyce is a cul-de-sac. [Ulysses is] ... an example how literature branched out and went into, lost itself in nowhere, no…

Books

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

Creativity

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You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but…

Art

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In Germany, you would be hanged if you cracked a joke about Hitler and you would be killed by the state if…

Comedy

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We are surrounded by worn-out, banal, useless and exhausted images, limping and dragging themselves behind the rest of our cultural evolution.

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Of course, you do not do any research: you have to go there and do your film. It's not that I would…

Cameras

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You can't have a helicopter fly over boiling lava. It would've exploded from the heat, and is just way too dangerous. The…

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Coincidences always happen if you keep your mind open, while storyboards remain the instruments of cowards who do not trust in their…

Aesthetics

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I do whatever pushes me hardest. It's coming at me and I try to... it's like uninvited guest and I have to…

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A fairly young, intelligent-looking man with long hair asked me whether filming or being filmed could do harm, whether it could destroy…

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I'm talking a lot on financing in the Masterclass and I know what it means to because I had to finance my…

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It was a subject [ volcanoes] that was dormant in me for a long time and it popped up 40 years ago…

Caribbean

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Robert Rodriguez, makes a feature film in 35mm celluloid one and a half hours long, and nobody believed him, I think he…

Book

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Otherwise you have to repeat a lot when you're filming. And I've seen the film and it's in a border town in…

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You are confronted with abysses of time that are, in a way, unfathomable. You see a painting in charcoal of raindeer and…

Abyss

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We do not see the danger clearly enough that we develop images adequate to our state of civilization. When you watch TV,…

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I'm trying to find these rare moments where you feel completely illuminated. Facts never illuminate you. The phone directory of Manhattan doesn't…

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That shot in "Into the Inferno" somehow popped up while my editor and I were viewing the footage. I immediately said, "That…

Action

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“A vision had seized hold of me, like the demented fury of a hound that has sunk its teeth into the leg…

Dreams

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Chauvet Cave is rather like the awakening of the modern human soul or I would say the awakening of modern human culture.…

Awakening

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Amos Vogel was a mentor, a guiding light for me. In his presence, you always rose. But his importance to me is…

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Werner Herzog by topic

Film (92) Cinema (57) Volcanoes (29) People (23) Thinking (22) Humans (17) Inspirational (16) World (15) Time (15) Art (15) Dreams (14) North korea (13)