Alfred Hitchcock Quotations

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.'

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

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

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.

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I am to provide the public with beneficial shocks.

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

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

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

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

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

Here's a choice item, very rare. Only 740,000 were ever made!

Paramount functions practically as a studio setup for him.

(when talking to a fans mother who was complaining that her daughter would no longer go in the shower after watching 'Phsyco')'Then madam I suggest you dry-clean her'

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

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

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

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.

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.

There is something more important than logic: imagination

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

Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.

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.

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?

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

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

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?

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.

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

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.

Never turn your back on a friend.

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.

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.

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.

Ideas come from everything

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

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

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.

In a good marriage each is the others better half.

Puns are the highest form of literature.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Everything's perverted in a different way.

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

If I won't be myself, who will?

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

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.

Self-plagiarism is style.

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

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

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

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

Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen.

Never judge a country by its politicians.

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

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.

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.

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.

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