Anyone who doesn’t know foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

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.

Language is the archives of history.

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

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

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. 

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.

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

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.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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.

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