Quotes

[2014, on hardly ever drinking alcohol in his personal life] This has always worked out quite well for me. I simply treasure the next day more than the current night. On the show [Circus Halligalli (2013)], I drink with a professional approach. But if I do that every once in a blue moon, it of course has a much bigger effect. It causes a distorted picture.

[2019] It's late October and I already finished the fifth pack of marzipan potato candy completely single-handedly, and domino tile candy will not even be listed here - good gracious!

[after having interviewed Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, the latter asks if he wants a cigarette] Yes, of course. Woah, I am completely out of breath, let's have a cigarette first.

[What could people learn from you?] Probably patience. I am a very patient person.

[2018] If I continue to smoke as much as I do, I am going to be dead soon.

[on his glasses] I only wear them in my personal life and not on television.

[2016] I now no longer smoke during mealtimes.

[2017, on his well-known discomfort with physical contact] I think it is totally cute how you [fans] always ask so nicely whether hugging me is okay. I only have a problem with it if someone runs up to me while standing at the traffic light and hugs me without asking permission first.

[2015, to Joko Winterscheidt] I am about to be sick. You are like Sami Slimani, only worse.

[2020] I have never done drugs in my whole life, simply because I am so insanely consistent, or because I am not that invulnerable. I am very addiction-prone, but I actually don't do them because I am always scared of everything.

[Katrin Bauerfeind: Something uncool that you still enjoy doing.] Crossword puzzles.

[on his hypermobile finger joints and the sight of his fingers being pressed down so they lie flat atop the back of his hand] This is something that, if I do it, makes most people say, 'Urgh, this is disgusting - do it again.'

Oh God, animals! I love animals.

[having been invited by Joko Winterscheidt to a "surprise day" and not aware yet that it will involve camping] I do not want to go outside. I do not wish to spend the whole day in the so-called fresh air. [Cameraman: What would be your favorite kind of surprise day?] Cinema. ... Alone.

Me, smoke a cigarette? ... Well, alright then.

[on changing attitudes towards smoking] When I started working at Viva, there was an ashtray next to my keyboard. In an open-plan office. And I smoked there, and at some point we were being told, you now have to go to the kitchen to smoke - oh no! No more yummy cigarettes at our desks, how are we supposed to cope with that?

[2020] Everytime I sit around and still unpack my Raffaello pralines on my own after more than 15(!) years in this business, I am quietly thinking to myself: Boy, both your feet are firmly on the ground - Lower Saxony's soil is still clinging to your feet. The business repels off you.

["catch phrase" when dealing with circumstances he finds embarrassing and/or unpleasant] I wish I was dead.

[upon learning one of the shredded foods he was pelted with and had to recognize by tasting on Joko gegen Klaas - Das Duell um die Welt (2012) were gherkins] Ew! I hate gherkins!

I can't have a smoke right now. [proceeds to light up]

Yeah, sometimes you actually think, leave me alone, all of you. I want to be in Oldenburg. Then I miss Oldenburg.

[Joko Winterscheidt: Did you just throw your cigarettes down there?] Yes, not everyone needs to know that I smoke after all.

[April 2020] In the experience cheese shelf, all of the Babybel is gone. When it finally stops is what I want to know!

I used to be incredibly lazy, untidy, disgusting in some regards. I accumulated packed school lunches for eight weeks and carried them around, stored whole empty buffets under my bed - really disgusting.

[Circus Halligalli (2013) challenge which involved him and Joko Winterscheidt locked up in a small box, attempting to get each other to leave the box first through various means, Klaas becoming increasingly annoyed by Joko playing the jaw harp] If Joko is allowed to pursue his hobby in here, I am allowed to do that as well, right? [receives a bag containing smoking paraphernalia and proceeds to smoke a pipe, a cigar and a cigarette successively, making Joko cough]

I am not a particularly big fan of and also not particularly talented at overly funny music. But I would be just as unlikely to offer a melancholy late night show.

[to Joko Winterscheidt, having switched clothes with him as part of "Wenn ich du wäre" ("If I were you") on NeoParadise (2011)] Tell me, do I always look just as scruffy in these clothes? [Joko: If they look the same on you as they do on me, then yes!] Oh dear, perhaps I should consider becoming a bit more interested in fashion after all!

[May 2020, Joko Winterscheidt asks him whether he has his glasses with him on Joko und Klaas gegen ProSieben (2019) as the two discuss task allocation, revealing to many viewers for the first time that Klaas wears glasses in his personal life] Why are you divulging that I have glasses, you monkey? Just because there is no audience here - there are still people watching there [points at camera]! [...] [in a mock correcting tone] I certainly don't have glasses!

[while cuddling a Golden Retriever puppy on Late Night Berlin (2018)] I really have the feeling that, for the first time in my career as a television monster, I have some kind of pulse again.

[having screamed because of a jump scare on Joko und Klaas gegen ProSieben (2019)] Yes, I am super skittish. I am startled by things like that all the time, immediately.

[arguing that Joko Winterscheidt having called his mobile phone during the Circus Halligalli (2013) "Being Quiet" challenge was unfair] [Joko: Klaas, quite honestly, someone would have called as the day goes on while we are sitting here anyway.] No, sometimes nobody calls [me] for days on end. [Joko has a laughing fit]

I see myself still sitting around smoking on television at age 71 and probably will never get enough.

You [Joko Winterscheidt] are ultimately something like the TV show host equivalent of the iPhone 5: Thin, lightweight, and, pointlessly, a little too tall.

["Being Quiet" challenge on Circus Halligalli (2013); Klaas has just fetched a crossword puzzle magazine, resulting in some very perplexed glances and giggling by Joko Winterscheidt] [Joko: What is that all about?] It's the Rätselmühle. This is something I enjoy doing. [more giggling by Joko]

There now follows the part where he [Joko Winterscheidt] hugs me. Joko hugs me about six times a day. [Joko: It's magnetic attraction.]

I managed to do the one thing Joko was absolutely sure I wouldn't be able to do: I trusted him!

You can deny he [Joko Winterscheidt] has any other organ, but he does have a heart.

[2012] Why is there no such thing as stuffed cabbage pizza anyway?

I feel like a commuter, on the Winterscheidt Express to Pointlessville.

You [Joko Winterscheidt] are using your looks. I don't care, they won't last forever anyway.

[Joko Winterscheidt: This laugh of mine, does it annoy you?] It does sometimes in the morning. Then it doesn't seem to me like a laugh but simply like a very loud, disruptive noise. Like the beeping you hear when you don't fasten your seat belt in the car, or like someone emptying a sack of potatoes over a drum kit.

If you betray somebody's trust, there simply won't be any trust anymore.

Joko actually doesn't have a sense of humor. Joko just laughs.

[interviewer suggesting he could have recorded an album with Joko Winterscheidt] No, really, I really enjoy spending time with Joko. But he is not exactly musical.

[2016] [Joko Winterscheidt, insisting Klaas has to shave off his bushy beard: Look what a sight you are!] I look like a lion!

[2016] [Circus Halligalli (2013); Joko Winterscheidt has just taken a photograph of Klaas, criticizing his bushy beard and insisting that if the photograph will get more than 50,000 Likes on Facebook, Klaas will have to shave off his beard by next week's episode] [Joko: Look what a sight you are!] I look like a lion! Rawr! [20 minutes later, Joko states that if Klaas can guess how many Likes the photograph has gotten so far, he will not have to shave off his beard after all, but Klaas greatly underestimates the amount and actually ends up shaving his beard]

[2011, visibly happily announcing another TV appearance of "his" beloved office pet turtle Sven Gewalt on NeoParadise (2011)] He has already met up with his daddy backstage just now, meaning with me.

[2011, on the construction progress of Berlin Brandenburg Airport postponing its anticipated opening date] It really is Berlin's biggest shame since Mario Barth. I would call it Mario Barth Airport because it already is ill-starred.

[Joko und Klaas gegen ProSieben (2019); Matthias Schweighöfer, along with Andreas Nowak, has to guess whether it is Klaas or Joko Winterscheidt who is currently holding/petting either a baby rabbit or a tarantula respectively; Schweighöfer correctly assumes Klaas is holding the tarantula due to believing him to have no phobias "except maybe confined spaces"] [I have a phobia of] cold water.

[on Joko Winterscheidt] It always feels a bit like you having your child with you because nobody can look after them.