Alfred Hitchcock
Master of suspense
Most quoted
"The audience is like a giant organ that you and I are playing. At one moment we play this note and get this reaction, and then we play that chord and they react that way. And someday we won't even have to make a movie — there'll be electrodes implanted in their brains, and we'll just press different buttons and they'll go 'ooooh' and 'aaahh' and we'll frighten them, and make them laugh. Won't that be wonderful?"
— from Interview with François Truffaut, 1966
"I'm scared of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes... 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."
— from Interview
"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."
— from Interview
All quotes by Alfred Hitchcock (313)
The more you hide, the more you reveal.
I like to make films that are like a game.
Television has brought murder back into the home - where it belongs.
One must never set up a murder without showing how it is done.
There is something more important than logic: imagination.
Self-plagiarism is style.
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.
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.
Puns are the highest form of literature.
I never go to the movies. I'm afraid of what I might see.
I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.
The trouble today is that we have a star system but no stars.
I'm not a man to be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
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.
The MacGuffin is the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn't care.
I never read any books about Hitchcock. My God, I'm not even interested in the subject.
It's a device, the MacGuffin, that's all. It can be anything.
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.'
I'm not a woman hater. I'm just a woman worrier.
The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema.
Contemporaries of Alfred Hitchcock
Other Film & Theaters born within 50 years of Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980).