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

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

Language is the house of being. In its home human beings dwell. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.

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

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 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.

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

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

Man is the one name belonging to every nation upon earth: there is one soul and many tongues, one spirit and various sounds; every country has its own speech, but the subjects of speech are common to all.

The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

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.

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