I love nature but against my better judgment.

My crew [on "Fitzcarraldo" filming] actually said, "We have filmed it from outside on the rocks of the shore. We should be on board [the ship]," and I said it's dangerous, I only do it if you cinematographer Thomas Mauch and you actor [Klaus] Kinski decide on your own.

I wouldn't like to travel at all. I've been too much around.

I function better in the jungle in Amazonia or Antarctica or Alaska or the Sahara desert. An artificial environment like a studio has never attracted me. I could work in a studio, but I would never really feel at home.

I don't care whether the person is guilty or not guilty. It's not my business to establish guilt or innocence. It's a court of law that does that and a jury does that, but not me.

There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.

Roger Ebert was the last mammoth alive who was holding the flag for real movies and moviemakers.