Film your murders like love scenes, and film your love scenes like murders.
There is a dreadful story that I hate actors. Imagine anyone hating Jimmy Stewart . . . Jack L. Warner. I can't imagine how such a rumor began. Of course it may possibly be because I was once quoted as saying that actors are cattle. My actor friends know I would never be capable of such a thoughtless, rude and unfeeling remark, that I would never call them cattle . . . What I probably said was that actors should be treated like cattle.
[on his cameos] "One of the earliest of these was in The Lodger (1927), the story of Jack the Ripper. My appearance called for me to walk up the stairs of the rooming house. Since my walk-ons in subsequent pictures would be equally strenuous - boarding buses, playing chess, etc. - I asked for a stunt man. Casting, with an unusual lack of perception, hired this fat man!"
The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder
There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.
To me Psycho (1960) was a big comedy. Had to be.
Even my failures make money and become classics a year after I make them.
Always make the audience suffer as much as possible
Drama is life with the dull bits left out.
[His entire acceptance speech for the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award] "Thank you."
[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."
[Eva Marie Saint on Hitchcock] "He said, 'I don't want you going back to sink-to-sink movies. You do movies where you wash the dishes looking drab in an apron. The audience wants to see their leading ladies dressed up.' He saw me as others didn't."
[About Dario Argento and his film Profondo rosso (1975)] "This young Italian guy is starting to worry me."
Some films are slices of life, mine are slices of cake.
I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.
[to Ingrid Bergman when she told him that she couldn't play a certain character the way he wanted because "I don't feel like that, I don't think I can give you that kind of emotion."] "Ingrid - fake it!"
I was an uncommonly unattractive young man.
It's only a movie, and, after all, we're all grossly overpaid.
There is nothing quite so good as a burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.
Man does not live by murder alone. He needs affection, approval, encouragement and, occasionally, a hearty meal.
Cartoonists have the best casting system. If they don't like an actor, they just tear him up.
[About Claude Jade, who starred in Topaz (1969)] "Claude Jade is a brave nice young lady. But I don't give any guarantee what she will do on a taxi's back seat."
[On directing Charles Laughton] "You can't direct a Laughton picture. The best you can hope for is to referee."
The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop.
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