What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.

Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so is he.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Words pay no debts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.