Alfred Hitchcock Quotes

It seems to me that television is exactly like a gun. Your enjoyment of it is determined by which end of it you're on.

Never turn your back on a friend.

Drama is real life with all the boring parts cut out.

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book
it makes a very poor doorstop.

I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.

I always try to look at things as though I were remembering them three years later.

All love scenes started on the set are continued in the dressing room.

Television has brought back murder into the home - where it belongs.

Weren't you ever booed at by your mother?!

Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.

I was an uncommonly unattractive young man.

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema

Love those wrongdoers, they need it more than you.

T.V. has brought murder back into the home where it belongs.

I'm a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.

Seeing a murder on television ... can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.

I am to provide the public with beneficial shocks.

There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.

Disney has the best casting. If he doesn't like an actor he just tears him up.

Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.

The ideal husband understands every word his wife doesn't say.

For me, suspense doesn't have any value if it's not balanced by humor.

I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them.

Claude Jade is a brave nice young lady. But I don't give any guarantee what she will do on a taxi's back seat.

When you can look forward, and the road is clear ahead, and now you are going to create something - that's as happy as I'd want to be.

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest.
-Alfred Hitchcock

Actually, I have no regard for money. Aside from its purchasing power, it's completely useless as far as I'm concerned.

I'm sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.

Self-plagiarism is style.

Twenty to life, she got, with time off for good behavior. You come around next spring. I'll introduce you.

Ideas come from everything

In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.

I've become a body of films, not a man, I am all those films.

Cary Grant is the only actor I ever loved in my whole life.

For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.

One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes.

Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake

Self-plagarism is style.

Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.

Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen.

There is nothing so good as a burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.

I'm a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them.

Mystery is an intellectual process ... But suspense is essentially an emotional process.

This award is meaningful because it comes from my fellow dealers in celluloid.

That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.

Puns are the highest form of literature.

Gee, I'm sorry I didn't hear you in all this rain. Go ahead in, please.
Anthony Perkin's Norman Bates
Talking To Janet Leigh's Marion Crane.

There is something more important than logic: imagination

Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like the kitchen table.

A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.

In films murders are always very clean. I show how difficult it is and what a messy thing it is to kill a man.

Someone once told me that every minute a murder occurs, so I don't want to waste your time, I know you want to go back to work.

To me Psycho was a big comedy. Had to be.

Man does not live by murder alone. He needs affection, approval, encouragement and, occasionally, a hearty meal.

What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.

Even my failures make money and become classics a year after I make them.

You think she's pretty, you ought to see my slingshot!

To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script.

I can't read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.

I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.

I'm not much into rear window ethics.

The picture's over. Now I have to go and put it on film.

The best actor is the man who can do nothing extremely well ...

In the documentary the basic material has been created by God, whereas in the fiction film the director is a God; he must create life.

A movie should be as long as one can hold their bladder

I have a feeling that inside you somewhere,there's somebody nobody knows about

San Francisco would be a good location for a murder mystery.

Television is like the American toaster, you push the button and the same thing pops up everytime.

One must never set up a murder. They must happen unexpectedly, as in life.

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

In reference to the murder scene in 'Dial M for murder' As you have seen on the screen the best way to do it is with a scissor.

Never judge a country by its politicians.

The Birds could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made.

Our primary function is to create an emotion and our secondary function is to sustain that emotions.

If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.

I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

If you can't do it naturally, then fake it.

It's only a movie, and, after all, we're all grossly overpaid.

I like stories with lots of psychology.

Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn't change people's habits. It just kept them inside the house.

Film your murders like love scenes, and film your love scenes like murders.

A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.

If I won't be myself, who will?

I always take the audience into account.

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.

Reality is something that none of us can stand, at any time.