When it is all up with Germany, when human beings cease to exist, and ants and cockroaches have taken over, and subsequently algae in the oceans that have started boiling; when the earth is then extinguished and the universe goes dark, collapsing in on itself to nothing, it is possible that something abstract will remain behind, perhaps something akin to a state of happiness. But I have a deep fear inside me that what will fill the darkness and the space that no longer exists will be a form of stupidity. It does not need a particular place, it is everywhere. Happiness, at least, requires open space.
[Werner Herzog, Thinking about Germany da A guide for the perplexed, 2014,
Faber and Faber Ltd 2014, p.468]