Top 14 Quotes & Sayings by Leni Riefenstahl

How awful for them [Hitler's victims] to see those swastikas, the SS men and the SA - people we'd never thought of as criminals.

I am fascinated by what is beautiful, strong, healthy, what is living. I seek harmony.

I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life.

I can simply say that I feel spontaneously attracted by everything that is beautiful... It comes from the unconscious and not from my knowledge... Whatever is purely realistic, slice of life, which is average, quotidian, doesn't interest me... I am fascinated by what is beautiful, strong, healthy, what is living. I seek harmony.

Everywhere I went I experienced the same success, which transcends words.

I am a great admirer of Robert Vavra and love his beautiful photographs and books. He is a wonderful artist, a poet.

I was fascinated by the effects that could be achieved by editing. The cutting room became a magic workshop for me.

The applause was so loud and insistent that I had to respond with several encores. I was numb with happiness, when it was over, I knew that this alone must be my life and my world.

I naturally prefer and capture the beauty in life.

Where is my guilt? I can regret. I can regret that I made the party film, `Triumph of the Will,' in 1934. But I cannot regret that I lived in that time. No anti-Semitic word has ever crossed my lips. I was never anti-Semitic. I did not join the party. So where then is my guilt? You tell me. I have thrown no atomic bombs. I have never betrayed anyone. What am I guilty of?

They kept asking me over and over again whether I was having a romance with Hitler. Are you Hitler's girlfriend? I laughed and answered the same way each time: No, those are false rumours. I only made documentaries for him.

I want to see, that's all. This is my life. I want to see

Reality doesn't interest me.

I [seek] a style in the realm of legend. Something that might allow me to give free rein to my juvenile sense of romanticism and the beautiful image.