Alfred Hitchcock Quotes

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

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

It has been rumored that "Psycho" is so terrifying that it will scare some people speechless. Some of my men hopefully sent their wives to a screening. The women emerged badly shaken but still vigorously vocal.

This weapon [an ax] is primitive but effective. And it's also guaranteed to be fifty-percent painless. You see, it takes two people to operate, and the person at this end [the handle] doesn't feel a thing.

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

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

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

I've never been very keen on women who hang their sex round their neck like baubles. I think it should be discovered. It's more interesting to discover the sex in a woman than it is to have it thrown at you, like a Marilyn Monroe or those types. To me they are rather vulgar and obvious.

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?

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

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

Puns are the highest form of literature.

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.

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

Love those wrongdoers, they need it more than you.

I try to offset any tendency towards the macabre with humour. As I see it, this is a typically English form of humour. It's a piece with such jokes as the one about the man who was being led to the gallows to be hanged. He looked at the trap door in the gallows, which was flimsily constructed, and he asked in some alarm, 'I say, is that thing safe?

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

There are several differences between a football game and a revolution. For one thing, a football game usually lasts longer and the participants wear uniforms. Also, there are usually more casualties in a football game. The object of the game is to move a ball past the other team's goal line. This counts as six points. No points are given for lacerations, contusions, or abrasions, but then no points are deducted, either. Kicking is very important in football. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic players even kick the ball, occasionally.

A woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing doesn't want to go to the movies to watch a film about a woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing.

Ideas come from everything

A woman of mystery is one who also has a certain maturity and whose actions speak louder than words. Any woman can be one, if she keeps those two points in mind. She should grow up-and shut up.

Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.

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

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

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

Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes ... have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I've never tasted it.

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

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

These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.

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

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

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

I am to provide the public with beneficial shocks.

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

Content, I am not interested in that at all. I don't give a damn what the film is about. I am more interested in how to handle the material so as to create an emotion in the audience. I find too many people are interested in the content. If you were painting a still life of some apples on a plate, it's like you'd be worrying whether the apples were sweet or sour. Who cares?

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

I'm full of fears and I do my best to avoid difficulties and any kind of complications. I like everything around me to be clear as crystal and completely calm.

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

I like stories with lots of psychology.

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

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

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

In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema: they are mostly what I call 'photographs of people talking.' When we tell a story in cinema we should resort to dialogue only when it's impossible to do otherwise. I always try to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between.

Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect 'woman of mystery' is one who is blonde, subtle and Nordic. ... Although I do not profess to be an authority on women, I fear that the perfect title [for a movie], like the perfect woman is difficult to find.

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

That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.

I'm not much into rear window ethics.

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.

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

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

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

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

A clear horizon - nothing to worry about on your plate, only things that are creative and not destructive ... I can't bear quarreling, I can't bear feelings between people - I think hatred is wasted energy, and it's all non-productive. I'm very sensitive - a sharp word, said by a person, say, who has a temper, if they're close to me, hurts me for days. I know we're only human, we do go in for these various emotions, call them negative emotions, but when all these are removed and you can look forward and the road is clear ahead, and now you're going to create something - I think that's as happy as I'll ever want to be.

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

People don't always express their inner thoughts to one another; a conversation may be quite trivial, but often the eyes will reveal what a person really thinks or feels.

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.

In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don't want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.

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

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

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

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

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

I was an uncommonly unattractive young man.

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

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

I understand that the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, astatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equaled the purity of sound achieved by the pig.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Self-plagarism is style.

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.

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

There is something more important than logic: imagination

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

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.

If I won't be myself, who will?

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