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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Language is the archives of history.

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

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

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.

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?

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. 

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