Alfred Hitchcock > Quotes

“Puns are the highest form of literature.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“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.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“Ideas come from everything”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“If I won't be myself, who will?”
― Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews

“Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“I’ve never been very keen on women who hang their sex round their neck like baubles. I think it should be discovered. It’s more interesting to discover the sex in a woman than it is to have it thrown at you, like a Marilyn Monroe or those types. To me they are rather vulgar and obvious.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“I'm a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

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

“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.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“I have a feeling that inside you somewhere,there's somebody nobody knows about”
― Alfred Hitchcock Thornton Wilder

“In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“T.V. has brought murder back into the home where it belongs.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“I'm a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“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. It will show them what we are really like.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“There is nothing so good as a burial at sea. It is simple, tidy, and not very incriminating.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“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. I always try to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between.”
― Alfred Hitchcock, Hitchcock/Truffaut

“I'm sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect ‘woman of mystery’ is one who is blonde, subtle and Nordic. ... Although I do not profess to be an authority on women, I fear that the perfect title [for a movie], like the perfect woman is difficult to find.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“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.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“A clear horizon — nothing to worry about on your plate, only things that are creative and not destructive… I can’t bear quarreling, I can’t bear feelings between people — I think hatred is wasted energy, and it’s all non-productive. I’m very sensitive — a sharp word, said by a person, say, who has a temper, if they’re close to me, hurts me for days. I know we’re only human, we do go in for these various emotions, call them negative emotions, but when all these are removed and you can look forward and the road is clear ahead, and now you’re going to create something — I think that’s as happy as I’ll ever want to be.”
― Alfred Hitchcock