Quotes By Alfred Hitchcock

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.'

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

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I am to provide the public with beneficial shocks.

A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth 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'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 am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

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

Self-plagiarism is style.

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

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

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