Only the poets can hold the country together, and I wanted to hold Germany together.

I am someone who takes everything very literally. I simply do not understand irony, a defect I have had ever since I was able to think independently.

I think I'm a prudent filmmaker.

We are surrounded by worn-out, banal, useless and exhausted images, limping and dragging themselves behind the rest of our cultural evolution.

Coincidences always happen if you keep your mind open, while storyboards remain the instruments of cowards who do not trust in their own imagination and who are slaves of a matrix If you get used to planning your shots based solely on aesthetics, you are never that far from kitsch.

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.

I think I would be a good villain in a James Bond movie. They were fairly weak, the last half-dozen of villains in James Bond movies were not that convincing.