You have to realize that, about 20,000 years ago, there was a cataclysmic event when an entire rock face collapsed and sealed off the cave. It's a completely preserved time capsule. You've got tracks of cave bears that look like they were left yesterday, and you've got the footprint of a boy who was probably eight years old next to the footprint of a wolf.
Werner HerzogWell they are very frightening for me because their stupidity is so flat. You look into the eyes of a chicken and you lose yourself in a completely flat, frightening stupidity. They are like a great metaphor for me... I kind of love chicken, but they frighten me more than any other animal.
Werner HerzogI'm a very circumspect and prudent person, and I eliminate danger as far as it can be done.
Werner HerzogYou are in a place that has not been seen for tens of thousands of years, because it was so sealed off. There is such silence that when you hold your breath you can hear your own heartbeat. Everything is so fresh that you have the sensation that the painters have merely retreated deeper into the dark and that they are looking at you.
Werner HerzogThe internet doesn't have any qualities, technical qualities. It's just fast, reaching out everywhere and so, it can process that and that volume of data flows and so, but it doesn't have any qualities like "good" or "bad" or "ethical" or "non-ethical". It's humans, it's us, not the internet.
Werner HerzogThe 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 HerzogWhile you are walking you would learn much more about filmmaking than if you were in a classroom. During your voyage you will learn more about what your future holds than in five years at film school. Your experiences would be the very opposite of academic knowledge, for academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion.
Werner Herzog