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

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

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

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?

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.

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

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.

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.

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.

Speak and speed; the close mouth catches no flies.

What a glut of books! Who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books; we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.

The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.

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