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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.