There's this kind of strange mythology about me in the media because I've done unusual things.

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

When the camera is looking back at our planet Earth, it's the tiniest of specks somewhere out there in the universe. So we do have a new sense of proportion. Of course the volcanoes and the magma under us just remind us of that.

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.

In Germany, you would be hanged if you cracked a joke about Hitler and you would be killed by the state if you were insane in a project of euthanasia.

I have never been one of those who cares about happiness. Happiness is a strange notion. I am just not made for it. It has never been a goal of mine; I do not think in those terms.

In the Chauvet Cave, there is a painting of a bison embracing the lower part of a naked female body. Why does Pablo Picasso, who had no knowledge of the Chauvet Cave, use exactly the same motif in his series of drawings of the Minotaur and the woman? Very, very strange.