Alfred Hitchcock

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.

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.

I can't read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.

I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

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.

There is something more important than logic: imagination

One must never set up a murder. They must happen unexpectedly, as in life.

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.

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.

The ideal husband understands every word his wife doesn't say.

A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.

There is nothing so good as a burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.

Even my failures make money and become classics a year after I make them.

It seems to me that television is exactly like a gun. Your enjoyment of it is determined by which end of it you're on.

[When accepting the American Film Institute Life Achievement award] I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter Pat (Patricia Hitchcock), and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen. And their names are Alma Reville.

To me Psycho was a big comedy. Had to be.

Drama is real life with all the boring parts cut out.

People don't always express their inner thoughts to one another; a conversation may be quite trivial, but often the eyes will reveal what a person really thinks or feels.

A woman, I always say, should be like a good suspense movie: The more left to the imagination, the more excitement there is. This should be her aim - to create suspense, to let a man discover things about her without her having to tell him.

Actually, I have no regard for money. Aside from its purchasing power, it's completely useless as far as I'm concerned.

Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen.