Of course, as a German, I wouldn't like to tell the American people how to handle their criminal justice.

In my films, I hope there are a few moments where you feel almost illuminated, like in a state of ecstasy, stepping out of yourself, beyond yourself and perceiving something which is only, in the case of cinema, possible in collective dreams.

You 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.

My non-fiction films are pretty much fiction, or at least close... It's all "movies" for me. I never have searched for a subject. They always just come along. They never come by way of decision-making. They just haunt me. I can't get rid of them. I did not invite them.

The power of a volcano when it erupts is so evident, so visible, so palpable.

I wouldn't make a connection between the daily news and volcanoes.

You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.