Werner Herzog Quotes

I am deeply honored to be making 'Life Itself,' a documentary on the life of Roger Ebert, and to have had the full cooperation and enthusiasm of Roger and his wife, Chaz.

In the dear dead days beyond recall, when I was in my prime as a film critic, the industry was booming. Hollywood, to give them their due, always called it the industry, through quite a few imagined it as an art form and went through several hours regularly at tiresome films in the sacred cause of art.

I love films. It's really funny, actually. Like, I see a lot of smaller movies. But a lot of these big, epic films that everyone's like, 'You have to see,' I haven't watched yet.

I wasn't a film buff.

I grew up cinematically in the '70s. I was watching a lot of Godard, Bresson, Dreyer, and all sorts of old films and the Czech New Wave.

My films seem to be better understood and better received by the monthly publications. On television the first reactions are usually unfavorable.

Film has become such a central part of our culture now that I think sometimes too great a weight is placed upon it in terms of scrutiny and analysis. There's a lot of rather specious professorial stuff that swirls around films.

If you truly love film, I think the healthiest thing to do is not read books on the subject. I prefer the glossy film magazines with their big color photos and gossip columns, or the National Enquirer. Such vulgarity is healthy and safe.

Audiences in mainland China know how to discuss movies.

My work is better, maybe all filmmakers are better, for Polanski's imprint on cinema. He created language for all of us to use, there is no question about that.

It is an entirely selfish decision to turn producer because I want my kind of cinema to last and flourish, and helping young filmmakers make those kind of films is the best way to do it.

If people ask me, 'For you, what is your most important film?' I have a feeling that they all sort of want me to answer with one of the Bergman films. But I cannot choose.

I've always felt that, although Truffaut was greatly revered and admired, at the same time, in terms of film and how much he loved film, he was underestimated.

I'll tell you, I think that the Internet has provided an enormous boost to film criticism by giving people an opportunity to self publish or to find sites that are friendly.

I use to watch like maybe three or four movies, five days out of the week. I was a movie buff, but I really didn't know what it was like behind the scenes, or the whole political process of it.

I don't mind other guys seeing movies I want to see and then writing about them. That's fine, especially when it's the 'New Yorker''s Anthony Lane, because he knows this stuff pretty well.

I am really not interested in the cinema.

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel first championed my film, 'Hoop Dreams,' which was essential to its success. Roger remained a great supporter of my work throughout my career, and I'll never forget him tweeting about 'The Interrupters' right before its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011.

I was never interested in film. Never. I never even thought of it. I wasn't even a film buff, I didn't see many films ever.

I am a great movie buff, and I devour films regularly.

I grew up watching films. Film has been part of my life since I was a child.

I kind of don't like doing film commentaries because I think they're kind of weird.

You tell me that 'Date Night' was good? I'm not going to see it. I will debate you on it, having no knowledge of the footage in the film. I was next to someone on the plane watching it, and they were dozing off.

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.

Filmmakers and critics wrote about each other and sometimes very harshly. This no longer exists.