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

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. 

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

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

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.

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.

Words pay no debts.

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

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.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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

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