Alfred Hitchcock
67 quotes
Biography
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential figures in the history of cinema.
"Puns are the highest form of literature."
"Ideas come from everything"
"What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out."
"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder."
"The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book -- it makes a very poor doorstop."
"[T]he director passed off the phrase as one of his "Machiavellian quips," not to be taken seriously. "Let us say, rather, that actors are a necessary evil," he cautioned, with a straight face. "As a matter of fact, I couldn't work if I weren't on friendly terms with them; I'll bend over backward every time. Besides, I get into each picture I make, if only for a couple of seconds—so I'm probably a frustrated actor at heart myself.""
"It still goes. But Pat is the nicest cattle I've ever seen."
"The lower lip definitely states that all actors are cattle—including the authorǃ"
"Actors are cattle. I've always said actors are cattle. In fact, Carole Lombard once built a corral on set and put three live calves into it, in recognition of my feelings. I tell them that, and treat them as such, and we get along fineǃ"
"Deep inside, I am a shy man. And in the presence of colorful characters, I am a clam. I never try to out-eccentric the eccentricsǃ"
"I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach."
"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."
"The Birds could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made."
"You can't direct a Laughton picture. The best you can hope for is to referee."
"I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes … have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I’ve never tasted it."
"A clear horizon — nothing to worry about on your plate, only things that are creative and not destructive and that's within yourself. Within me 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 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 would ever want to be."
"We do not recommend suicide as a way of life."
"I deny that I ever said actors are cattle. What I said was, "Actors should be treated like cattle.""
"Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn't change people’s habits. It just kept them inside the house."
"One of television's great contributions is that it brought murder back into the home, where it belongs."
"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."
"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."
"Give them pleasure – the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare."
"Self-plagiarism is style."
"Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints."