Klaus Kinski

"I didn't choose to be alone. But I cannot explain this. I could be with a woman in a bed, for weeks even and it would seem to me like three seconds. Or 300 years. There is no time sense because of things that are going on in you. I don't know, there is no explanation of this. But every time, even with someone I.... But whenever I was with a woman, I always sort of want another one. So there was always another one. I can't explain this, but it means that these women, they were not sharing my solitude. I wanted to stay with somebody, but I couldn't, it wasn't possible, because of this thing moving in myself. I had to learn this. I didn't want to be alone, but I had to learn that the dimensions of my feelings are too violent. I had to learn this."

"Your face is that of a child, but your expression is hard at the same time. It changes from one to the other in an instant. I have never seen such a face."

"He was a classy actor. He was a little odd. He did not like people to touch him. He did not like people to get too close to him, like wardrobe people, people like that. He thought that they were getting into his aura, so to speak."

"Kinski's fits can be partly explained by his egocentric character. Egocentric is perhaps not the right word; he was an outright egomaniac. Whenever there was a serious accident, it became a big problem because, all of a sudden, he was no longer the centre of attention. He was no longer important."

"Here is this man, Kinski, and you have to put him on the screen. You have to take all his rage, all his intensity, all his demonic qualities, and make them productive for the screen. That was the task and there was no time for learning. I had to master the situation from day one, from the first day of shooting Aguirre. On set you have no choice. I had to be strong enough to shape him and force him to the utmost, beyond the limits of what is normally required for the shooting of a film. But he would push me equally-to the limit. It was not permissible to take even a little step back from his level of intensity and professionalism. And, of course, he literally would have been ready to die with me, if I had died on the ship in the rapids. He would have sunk in the ship with me, and vice versa. But I cannot deny that there were moments, which were dangerous, when we could have killed each other."

"Kinski was not an actor - I wouldn't call him an artist either, nor am I. Of course, he mastered the techniques of being an actor, the technique of speech, of understanding the presence of light and of the camera, the choreography of camera and of bodily movements... But at the core of Klaus Kinski was not his existence as an actor - he was something beyond that and apart from it."

"People like Brando are just kindergarten compared to Kinski. He is totally mad and unpredictable. You can see something raging in this man. We liked each other, we hated each other and we respected each other, even though we hatched serious plots to murder each other."

"The funny thing about Klaus Kinski is that for all the bravado he’s just a scared little man. All you have to do is stand up to him. Herzog knew and I knew that, too. He wasn’t a bad person, he’s just so self-centered. Everything was his way or the highway."

"He was one of the few German actors I really admired because he did his own thing - he didn't adapt, he didn't conform in any way, and he had this strong way of playing his roles."

"I have never met a man like my father. He is so mad, terrible and vehement at the same time. Because of him, I never knew anything other than passion. When I began to meet other people I saw that it wasn’t normal."

"My father loved us so much, but he's the kind of person that chokes you. He doesn't leave you your own pleasures. If you think or feel one way and he feels the other way, he won't accept it. My mother wanted to work. People wanted her to do movies, but he just wanted her to be at home, be a mother, be a wife, be this Venus, this planet he could land on anytime."

"My father is so expressive that things he feels even before they are thoughts are visible on his skin. He heats up. What other people work on, he was born with. He's got eyes like the sky and like hell at the same time. They're so clear and blue and alert and serious, and then they're like hell. That's how he is. He is total light and pureness and then hell. He gives totally or he gives nothing. He is like the sun, then an iceberg, then nonexistent, and then the sun again. Which is fine. It's a lot better than most people are."

"When he died I had a moment of grief that lasted about five minutes. It was very intense, then never again. Not because I forced myself, but I think it was because he caused us too much pain."

"I would do anything to put him behind bars for life. I am glad he is no longer alive."

"I can't hear it anymore: 'Your father! Great! A genius! I always liked him.' The idolization has only gotten worse since his death."

"The terrible thing is that he once told me that it was completely natural, that fathers all over the world did that with their daughters. He was paying for me to be his little sex object, placed on silk cushions."

"As a child I always had to keep my mouth shut because he was always threatening me. And I was dependent on him, on his affection."

"I've written a book about [Kinski's abuse] because I can no longer bear the fact that a person whose halo gets bigger from year to year is being glorified in this way."

"When he died my mother [the singer Gislinde Kühlbeck], told me on the telephone and I felt nothing, neither a sense of sadness nor hate."

"He’s putting his hand up my skirt. The night before he kept coming to my room, he came to my door, he came to my window, he tried to get in. One time he saw me, he stood up and said he was Nosferatu...anything to get me to open the window."

"„Kinski war eigentlich pflegeleicht, aber wenn er spielte, war er unkontrollierbar.“"

"„Ich bin nicht der offizielle Kirchenjesus. Der unter Polizisten, Bankiers, Richtern, Henkern, Offizieren, Kirchenbossen, Politikern und ähnlichen Vertretern der Macht geduldet wird. Ich bin nicht euer Superstar!“"

"„Wer mich beleidigt, entscheide ich.“"

"„Schlechtes Benehmen halten die Leute doch nur deswegen für eine Art Vorrecht, weil keiner ihnen aufs Maul haut.“"

"„Die deutsche Sprache ist eine der schönsten und ausdrucksvollsten aller Sprachen"