Hell, I just love Herzog's reaction to being shot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXqc8TQ15w The journalist is flipping out, but Herzog sits there, bleeding, and saying, "Ja, these things happen." I believe, on another occasion, he also ate his own shoe after losing a bet.
His opinion on damn near everything is usually brilliant. Even his views on chickens are great to listen to with his magnificent turn of phrase.
There is a film: Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. The premise is that he met Errol Morris before Morris was famous. Morris told him about a film he wanted to make (what later became Gates of Heaven, the most beautiful documentary of all time). Herzog called bullshit, and said he would eat his shoe if Morris ever completed the film. Fortunately, Les Blank was there documenting the event when Werner made good on his bet.
If I remember right, the shoe-eating took place at a theater in downtown Berkeley which was about 10 minutes' walk from where I used to live. The place is now closed up, alas, but it shall forever be remembered as the place where Werner Herzog ate a piece of footwear.
Thank you for the link, that was amazing! What a guy, a modern day Teddy Roosevelt. It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose! I, on the other hand would be clamoring for a bandage and milking it for all the sympathy it could muster.