Science is not perfect. It's often misused; it's only a tool, but it's the best tool we have. Self-correcting, ever-changing, applicable to everything; with this tool, we vanquish the impossible.

— Carl Sagan

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; while working at Haus Esters, about 1927/28.

You know the typical crowd, "Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there?" Well, yeah. Because there's nothing out there. It's stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I've never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That's all. Sorry for all the millions, but I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have.

— Charles Bukowski

Art exists because life is not enough.

— Ferreira Gullar

What traces does an event leave in a room after it has taken place?

— Gregor Schneider

The way to create art is to burn and destroy ordinary concepts and to substitute them with new truths, that run down from the top of the head and out of the heart.

— Charles Bukowski

Anyone who isn't confused doesn't really understand the situation.

— Edward R. Murrow

People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.

— Charles Bukowski

The final scene of Cobra Verde was the last day of shooting that we ever did together. He had put so much intensity into this final scene that he just fell apart afterwards. Even at the time we both sensed it, and he even said to me, "We can go no further. I am no more". He died in 1991 at his home north of San Francisco. He had just burnt himself out like a comet. Like me, Kinski was a very physical person, but in a different way. We complemented each other well because he drew everyone together. He attracted the herd magnetically and I held it together. Kinski was made for me, for my cinema. Sometimes I want to put my arm around him again, but I guess I only dream about this because I have seen this in old footage of the two of us. I do not regret a moment, not one. Maybe I do miss him. Yes, now and then I do miss him.

— Werner Herzog

The hopeless dream of being - not seeming, but being. At every waking moment, alert. The gulf between what you are with others and what you are alone. The vertigo and the constant hunger to be exposed, to be seen through, perhaps even wiped out. Every inflection and every gesture a lie, every smile a grimace. Suicide? No, too vulgar. But you can refuse to move, refuse to talk, so that you don't have to lie. You can shut yourself in. Then you needn't play any parts or make wrong gestures. Or so you thought. But reality is diabolical. Your hiding place isn't watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you're forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you're genuine or just a sham.

— Ingmar Bergman

Valie Export | Theseustempel | 1982

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

— Leonardo da Vinci

We prefer to do things comfortably. But I don't want comfort. I want poetry, I want danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.

— Aldous Huxley

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.

— Ernest Hemingway

The art audience is the worst audience in the world. It's overly educated, it's conservative, it's out to criticize not to understand, and it never has any fun. Why should I spend my time playing to that audience?

— David Hammons

I've seen you at your worst and I still think you're the best.