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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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.

I live by good soup, and not on fine language.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

History does not merely touch on language, but takes place in it.