Alfred Hitchcock Quotes

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

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 me Psycho was a big comedy. Had to be.

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.

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.

Never judge a country by its politicians.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

If I won't be myself, who will?

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.

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

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 a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.

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.

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

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.

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.

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

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

I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.

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

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

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.

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.

Everything's perverted in a different way.

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

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

I'm not much into rear window ethics.

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

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.

Self-plagiarism is style.