When I begin a film, I want to make a great film. Halfway through, I just hope to finish the film.

The man who thinks he can do without the world is indeed mistaken; but the man who thinks the world cannot do without him is mistaken even worse.

Taste is a result of a thousand distastes.

Purely cinematic film ... actually the purest expression of a cinematic idea.

But the cinephile is … a neurotic! (That’s not a pejorative term.) The Bronte sisters were neurotic, and it’s because they were neurotic that they read all those books and became writers. The famous French advertising slogan that says, “When you love life, you go to the movies,” it’s false! It’s exactly the opposite: when you don’t love life, or when life doesn’t give you satisfaction, you go to the movies.

Hitchcock loves to be misunderstood, because he has based his whole life around misunderstandings.

In love, women are professionals, men are amateurs.