Conquest of the Useless Quotes

“But the question that everyone wanted answered was whether I would have the nerve and the strength to start the whole process from scratch. I said yes; otherwise I would be someone who had no dream left, and without dreams I would not want to live.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“Am I in the wrong place here, or in the wrong life? Did I not recognize, as I sat in a train that raced past a station and did not stop, that I was on the wrong train, and did I not learn from the conductor that the train would not stop at the next station, either, a hundred kilometers away, and did he not also admit to me, whispering with his hand shielding his mouth, that the train would not stop again at all?”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“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.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“For a moment the feeling crept over me that my work, my vision, is going to destroy me, and for a fleeting moment I let myself take a long, hard look at myself, something I would not otherwise do--out of instinct, on principle, out of self-preservation--look at myself with objective curiosity to see whether my vision has not destroyed me already. I found it comforting to note that I was still breathing.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“It is only through writing that I become myself”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“A vision had seized hold of me, like the demented fury of a hound that has sunk its teeth into the leg of a deer carcass and is shaking and tugging at the downed game so frantically that the hunter gives up trying to calm him. It was the vision of a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam, working its way up a steep slope in the jungle, while above this natural landscape, which shatters the weak and the strong with equal ferocity, soars the voice of Caruso, silencing all the pain and all the voices of the primeval forest and drowning out all birdsong. To be more precise: bird cries, for in this setting, left unfinished and abandoned by God in wrath, the birds do not sing; they shriek in pain, and confused trees tangle with one another like battling Titans, from horizon to horizon, in a steaming creation still being formed. Fog-panting and exhausted they stand in this unreal misery - and I, like a stanza in a poem written in an unknown foreign tongue, am shaken to the core.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“In the evening I finished reading a book, and because I was feeling so alone, I buried the book on the edge of the forest with a borrowed spade.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“At the market I ate a piece of a grilled monkey—it looked like a naked child.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“Ein jüngerer, intelligent aussehender Mann mit langem Haar fragte mich, ob Filmen, bzw. Gefilmtwerden, Schaden anrichten könne, ob es eine Person vernichten könne. In meinem Herzen war die Antwort ja, aber ich sagte nein.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“Camisea 7/2/81

La naturaleza ha recobrado el juicio, solo la selva sigue amenazante, inmóvil. El río, ese monstruo, fluye sin sonido. La noche cae muy rápido y, como siempre a esta hora, los últimos pájaros insultan a la tarde. Canto ronco, sonidos inquietantes y por debajo, uniforme, el chirrido de las primeras cigarras. De tanto trabajar bajo la lluvia tengo los dedos arrugados como las lavanderas. En la espalda tengo al menos cien picaduras de un insecto que se ha mantenido oculto; todo en mí se pudre de humedad. Estaría agradecido si sólo fuese una pesadilla lo que me atormenta. Sobre la mesa apareció un insecto curioso, alargado como una lanza, antediluviano, con antenas a ambos lados de la extremada y fina prolongación delantera. No he podido descubrir si tenía ojos. Cargaba un insecto muerto igual a él y ha desaparecido entre las juntas del suelo de cortezas.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Fever Dreams in the Jungle

“Ich las die Übersetzung des Piaveschen Librettos zu Ernani, herausgegeben in Zürich 1952, und im Vorwort steht in atemberaubender Dummheit, man habe die krassesten Unglaubwürdigkeiten ausgemerzt, wo doch gerade das Unfaßbare das Schöne an der Geschichte ist, oder besser: an der Gattung Oper an sich, weil gerade was von keiner auch noch so exotischen Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung mehr erfaßbar ist, in der Oper zu einer machtvollen Verwandlung der ganzen Welt in Musik als das Natürliche erscheint.

Auch die großen Gefühle der Oper, die oft als übersteigert abgetan werden, kommen mir eher in die Gegenrichtung aufs äußerste reduziert vor, auf das Archetypische der Gefühle verdichtet, nicht mehr weiter in ihrer Essenz konzentrierbar. Es sind Axiome von Gefühlen. Das ist es, was Oper und Dschungel verbindet.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo

“In mir wühlte eine Verlassenheit, wie Termiten in einem gefallenen Baumstamm.”
― Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo