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?

Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all without words?

Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.

Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.

The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.

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.

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.

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

Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.

I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.

God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for them.

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

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.