I live by good soup, and not on fine language.

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.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

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

Writing cannot express words fully; words cannot express thoughts fully.

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands, and goes to work.