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.

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 newspaper is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.

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

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

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

The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms.

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?

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.

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

Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.

In the case of news, we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.