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?

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.

Slang is as old as speech and the congregating together of people in cities. It is the result of crowding and excitement and artificial life.

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

It is impossible to translate the poets. Can you translate music?

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Words pay no debts.

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

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

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

Information can tell us everything. It has all the answers. But they are answers to questions we have not asked, and which doubtless don’t even arise.

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

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.