Alfred Hitchcock

When it comes to producing an audience's reaction, Hitchcock essentially thought that the subject matter was inconsequential. In other words, if you want the viewer to feel anxious, it doesn't matter what the subject matter is as long as it's shot and edited in a certain way.

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

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.

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

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.'

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

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

Man does not live by murder alone. He needs affection, approval, encouragement and, occasionally, a hearty meal.

There's hills in them thar gold.

Every film I make is a comedy.

I think the British have a sense of humor, especially about the macabre.

I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

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

Making a picture like Psycho, that's hilarious to me.

I am scared of getting into any difficulties somebody once said to me what is your idea of happiness. I said a clear Horizon. not even that Horizon with a tiny Cloud no bigger than a man's fist.

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

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 prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000.

I'm a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.

If I won't be myself, who will?

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.