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

Nature is monumentally indifferent.

It has always been my aim to find that sort of passion and figure out how to transform it into cinema.Timothy Treadwell's footage was almost like a diary, and he had always dreamt of becoming the movie star in his own gigantic production.

I couldn't roam wildly and speak secretly with villagers [in North Korea]. No way you could do that. And honestly, I didn't even try. I was realistic of what I could do and yet persuaded them into accepting numerous things that I shouldn't have filmed.

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.

In a way, I managed to get the deepest things, the best things out of people. That's why I'm a filmmaker. If you don't have it in you, you'd better do something else.

A fairly young, intelligent-looking man with long hair asked me whether filming or being filmed could do harm, whether it could destroy a person. In my heart the answer was yes, but I said no.