Top 35 Klaus Kinski Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You leap over the wall of one ghetto and find yourself in another ghetto.”

— Klaus Kinski

2. “One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real.”

— Klaus Kinski

3. “Sometimes my heart hurts so much, I beat it with my fists. I try to run. But you cannot run from this. It waits for you. Even when you think you have escaped it, it is there.”

— Klaus Kinski

4. “I am not the Jesus of the official church tolerated by those in power. I am not your superstar.”

— Klaus Kinski

5. “Put a bird cage near the window so that the bird can see the sky? It’s much better to look than not to, even if it hurts.”

— Klaus Kinski

6. “Where a beast would have claws, I was born with talent.”

— Klaus Kinski

7. “I wish I’d never been an actor. I’d rather have been a streetwalker, selling my body, than selling my tears and my laughter, my grief and my joy.”

— Klaus Kinski

8. “But words – words are not enough!”

— Klaus Kinski

9. “When you are there, you are. With words, you aren’t.”

— Klaus Kinski

10. “I am your fairy tale. Your dream. Your wishes and desires, and I am your thirst and your hunger and your food and your drink.”

— Klaus Kinski

11. “I don’t need anybody to tell me how to be alive.”

— Klaus Kinski

12. “The truth is, I can never die. For I will be in everything and see you in everything and watch over you. I am your reaction in the water of a mountain lake.”

— Klaus Kinski

13. “The ultimate acting is to destroy yourself.”

— Klaus Kinski

14. “It is the Nobel Prize I want. It’s worth $400,000.”

— Klaus Kinski

15. “People who do not see the terrible things therefore do not see the beautiful things, either.”

— Klaus Kinski

16. “I could be with a woman in a bed, for weeks even, and it would seem to me like three seconds. Or 300 years.”

— Klaus Kinski

17. “Working with a great director is wonderful for an actor because it means that you’re not forced to take the advice of an idiot.”

— Klaus Kinski

18. “You don’t need a framework. You need a painting, not a frame.”

— Klaus Kinski

19. “I knew there were, in myself, the souls of millions of people who lived centuries ago; not just people but animals, plants, the elements, things, even, matter. All of these exist in me.”

— Klaus Kinski

20. “I am dying of hunger.”

— Klaus Kinski

21. “I make movies for money, exclusively for money.”

— Klaus Kinski

22. “Whenever I was with a woman, I always sort of want another one. So there was always another one. I can’t explain this.”

— Klaus Kinski

23. “In a way, everything concerning a movie leaves me cold.”

— Klaus Kinski

24. “You have to protect yourself, your body, your being. You cannot treat it badly; you have to keep it, make as sensitive as possible.”

— Klaus Kinski

25. “On working with director Werner Herzog: I have to shoot without any breaks. I yell at Herzog and hit him. I have to fight for every sequence. I wish Herzog would catch the plague.”

— Klaus Kinski

26. “The dimensions of my feelings are too violent.”

— Klaus Kinski

27. “Why have I had this life? If I knew, I wouldn’t have done it.”

— Klaus Kinski

28. “Once, I took a taxi. I hate those limousines. They stink and their drivers have been driving dead people to the cemeteries.”

— Klaus Kinski

29. “If I hadn’t refused Ken Russell, Fellini and Spielberg and made their movies when they asked me, my life would be no different. It is not my fault that I accepted one movie and turned down another. I don’t see any point in defending myself, either.”

— Klaus Kinski

30. “At sixteen I get drafted. When I read the draft notice, I cry. Not because I’m a coward – I’m not afraid of anyone. But I don’t want to kill or be killed.”

— Klaus Kinski

31. “I sell myself for the highest price. Exactly like a prostitute. There is no difference.”

— Klaus Kinski

32. “It is true what Rimbaud said; If you think a book is strong enough, try it at the ocean, in the wind, at the waves. If the book can resist the ocean, then it exists. Otherwise, throw it away.”

— Klaus Kinski

33. “Why do I continue making movies? Making movies is better than cleaning toilets.”

— Klaus Kinski

34. “I didn’t choose solitude.”

— Klaus Kinski

35. “I actually get venereal disease more often than most people catch colds.”

— Klaus Kinski

36. “About 25 years ago, I was in an apartment, and next door, they put on the radio, so I struck the wall with my fist, but they did not put the radio down. I took a tool and banged until I made a hole through the wall. It was like a comedy movie.”

— Klaus Kinski