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.

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.

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?

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

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.

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. 

Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests. 

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.

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

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Words pay no debts.

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

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