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.

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. 

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?

A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

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

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?

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.

The newspaper is the natural enemy of the book, as the whore is of the decent woman.

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

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