Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it.

| Andrei Tarkovsky

How do you see your own place in the scheme of things?

“I look out at the world and I see chaos. And that’s kind of the formula for being an outsider. You don’t want to be an outsider, you want to belong and you’re burdened with these human frailties. You need companionship; you need food and drink; you need a nice place to sleep; you want to be understood even though you’re doing something that’s a little difficult; you want your work to be appreciated; you want to be loved. We’re burdened with this. But what we’re doing is we’re creating something that is a little bit scary to most people. It challenges their view of the world. Most people think the world is a perfectly ordered place and they love it. The outsider looks at that and goes, ‘Man, this is chaos. This makes no sense at all.’ And then, they try to tell the truth. And they’re compelled to tell the truth. They can’t help but tell the truth by some inner sense of responsibility.”

— John Zorn, interview in Jazz Times

When they say Don’t I know you? 
say no. 

When they invite you to the party 
remember what parties are like 
before answering. 
Someone telling you in a loud voice 
they once wrote a poem. 
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate. 
Then reply. 

If they say We should get together 
say why?

It’s not that you don’t love them anymore. 
You’re trying to remember something 
too important to forget. 
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight. 
Tell them you have a new project. 
It will never be finished. 

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store 
nod briefly and become a cabbage. 
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years 
appears at the door, 
don’t start singing him all your new songs. 
You will never catch up. 

Walk around feeling like a leaf. 
Know you could tumble any second. 
Then decide what to do with your time.

— Naomi Shihab Nye, The Art Of Disappearing

journalist: could you tell us about the social usage of film? what is the value of films for society?

werner herzog: who is society? i don't know. this i have kept wondering ever since i've been in contact with audiences and i've wondered what the value of films was. and i think, i dont know, it gives us some insight. it doesn't change people, i thought it would, films could cause revolutions or whatever and it does not. but films might change our perspective of things and ultimately in the long term it may be something valuable, but there's a lot of absurdity involved as well. as you see, it makes me into a clown. and that happens to everyone. just look at orson welles, look at people like truffaut, they have become clowns. 

j: is it the film or is it the publicity involved?

wh: it's because what we do as filmmakers is immaterial. it's only a projection of light, and doing that all your life makes you a clown, and it's an almost inevitable process.

j: i would feel the same way about still photography.

wh: yes, a little bit. it comes close to it, it's illusionist work. and it's just embarrassing to be a filmmaker and just sit here like this. i mean, thank heavens i don't sit here for my own films, i'm sitting here for a film that was made for a friend of mine.