Alfred Hitchcock Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

To make a great film you need three things: the script, the script and the script.

Alfred Hitchcock
On Rear Window:
I'll bet you that nine out of ten people, if they see a woman across the courtyard undressing for bed, or even a man puttering around in his room, will stay and look; no one turns away and says, "It's none of my business." They could pull down their blinds, but they never do; they stand there and look out.

Alfred Hitchcock
The Birds could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made.

Alfred Hitchcock
Cartoonists have the best casting system. If they don't like an actor, they just tear him up.

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
Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?

Alfred Hitchcock
All love scenes started on the set are continued in the dressing room.

Alfred Hitchcock
If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.

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.

Alfred Hitchcock
I didn't discover Grace [Kelly], but I saved her from a fate worse than death. I prevented her from being eternally cast as a cold woman.

Alfred Hitchcock
Blondes are the best victims. They're like virgin snow which shows up the bloody footprints.

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

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

Alfred Hitchcock
[This award is] meaningful because it comes from my fellow dealers in celluloid.
On receiving American Film Institute's 1979 Lifetime Achievement Award

Alfred Hitchcock
Grace Kelly's apparent frigidity was like a mountain covered with snow, but that mountain was a volcano.

Alfred Hitchcock