Alfred Hitchcock Quotes

Puns are the highest form of literature.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

Twenty to life, she got, with time off for good behavior. You come around next spring. I'll introduce you.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

Gee, I'm sorry I didn't hear you in all this rain. Go ahead in, please.Anthony Perkin's Norman BatesTalking To Janet Leigh's Marion Crane.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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?

~ Alfred Hitchcock

I have never known birds of different species to flock together. The very concept is unimaginable. Why, if that happened, we wouldn't stand a chance! How could we possibly hope to fight them?

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

Love those wrongdoers, they need it more than you.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock

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

~ Alfred Hitchcock