Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists. They indeed are not great writers, but they speak the language of their countrymen, and make themselves heard by them. 

Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

Unexemplary words and unfounded doctrines are avoided by the noble person. Why utter them?

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Language is the archives of history.

I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.

Under all speech that is good for anything, there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time.