The gift of a common tongue is a priceless inheritance and it may well some day become the foundation of a common citizenship.

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

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.

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.

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.

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

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.

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

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.

God never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make the message clear for 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?