Alfred hitchcock quotes

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

There is something more important than logic: imagination

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

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?

Self-plagiarism is style.

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.

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

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

When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'

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.

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

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

Never judge a country by its politicians.

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.

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

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.

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.

There are several differences between a footballl game and a revolution. For one thing, a football game usually lasts longer and the participants wear uniforms. Also there are more injuries at a football game.

Seeing a murder on television can help us unload the feelings of hate themselves. If you do not have feelings of hatred, may be obtained in the advertising interval.

Our original title, you know, was `The Man in Lincoln`s Nose`. Couldn`t use it, though. They also wouldn`t let us shoot people on Mount Rushmore. Can`t deface a national monument. And it`s a pity, too, because I had a wonde.

I was an uncommonly unattractive young man.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

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

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like. I have prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like.

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.

I would almost say that the best screen actor is the man who can do nothing extremely well.

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

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

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 we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one.

Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement.

I always take the audience into account.

Ideas come from everything

I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.

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

I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened; they revolt me. That round white thing without any holes, and when you break it, inside there’s that yellow thing, round, without any holes… Brrr! 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.

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

Kicking is very important in football. In fact, some of the more enthusiastic players even kick the ball, occasionally.

I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me.

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.

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

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

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

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

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.

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

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?

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

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

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

I like stories with lots of psychology.

Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.

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.

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

I'm not much into rear window ethics.

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

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

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

That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.

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

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?

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

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.

Drama is life with the dull bits left out. There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. I believe in putting the horror in the minds of the audience, and not necessarily on the screen. The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

Never turn your back on a friend.

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

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

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

In a good marriage each is the others better half.

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

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.

The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual.

Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen.

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

Puns are the highest form of literature.

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

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.

[When accepting the American Film Institute Life Achievement award] I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter Pat (Patricia Hitchcock), and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen. And their names are Alma Reville.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

A woman, I always say, should be like a good suspense movie: The more left to the imagination, the more excitement there is. This should be her aim - to create suspense, to let a man discover things about her without her having to tell him.

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

I am scared easily, here is a list of my adrenaline - production: 1: small children, 2: policemen, 3: high places, 4: that my next movie will not be as good as the last one.

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

I don't understand why we have to experiment with film. I think everything should be done on paper. A musician has to do it, a composer. He puts a lot of dots down and beautiful music comes out. And I think that students should be taught to visualize. That's the one thing missing in all this. The one thing that the student has got to do is to learn that there is a rectangle up there - a white rectangle in a theater - and it has to be filled.

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Everything's perverted in a different way.

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

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

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

I am to provide the public with beneficial shocks.