Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE was an English film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is one of the most influential and widely studied filmmakers in the history of cinema. Known as the “Master of Suspense”, he directed over 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades, becoming as well known as any of his actor’s thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting and producing of the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations including six wins, although he never won for Best Director despite having had five nominations. These Alfred Hitchcock quotes will motivate you.
Famous Alfred Hitchcock Quotes
- “There is something more important than logic: imagination” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “The ideal husband understands every word his wife doesn’t say.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s somebody nobody knows about” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Never judge a country by its politicians.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
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“If I won’t be myself, who will?” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock , Alfred Hitchcock quotes on suspense
- “Drama is life with the dull bits left out. There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it. I believe in putting the horror in the minds of the audience, and not necessarily on the screen. The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock , Alfred Hitchcock quotes about film
- “Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Film your murders like love scenes, and film your love scenes like murders.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
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“Drama is real life with all the boring parts cut out.” ~ 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
- “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
- “Mystery is an intellectual process… But suspense is essentially an emotional process.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Reality is something that none of us can stand, at any time.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “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.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
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“I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn’t change people’s habits. It just kept them inside the house.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “I always try to look at things as though I were remembering them three years later.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Our primary function is to create an emotion and our secondary function is to sustain that emotions.” ~ 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
- “Happiness is a small house, with a big kitchen.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock , Alfred Hitchcock quotes on happiness
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“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Ideas come from everything” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “A woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing doesn’t want to go to the movies to watch a film about a woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “I try to offset any tendency towards the macabre with humor. As I see it, this is a typically English form of humor. It’s a piece with such jokes as the one about the man who was being led to the gallows to be hanged. He looked at the trap door in the gallows, which was flimsily constructed, and he asked in some alarm, ‘I say, is that thing safe?” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
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“Self-plagiarism is style.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Actually, I have no regard for money. Aside from its purchasing power, it’s completely useless as far as I’m concerned.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “One must never set up a murder. They must happen unexpectedly, as in life.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
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“In a good marriage each is the others better half.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “A glimpse into the world proves that horror is nothing other than reality.” ~ 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
- “Man does not live by murder alone. He needs affection, approval, encouragement and, occasionally, a hearty meal.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “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.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, ‘It’s in the script.’ If he says, ‘But what’s my motivation?, ‘ I say, ‘Your salary.'” ~ Alfred Hitchcock , Alfred Hitchcock quotes about script
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“Television is like the American toaster, you push the button and the same thing pops up every time.” ~ 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
- “In films murders are always very clean. I show how difficult it is and what a messy thing it is to kill a man.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “I’ve become a body of films, not a man, I am all those films.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
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“I would almost say that the best screen actor is the man who can do nothing extremely well.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “I don’t understand why we have to experiment with film. I think everything should be done on paper. A musician has to do it, a composer. He puts a lot of dots down and beautiful music comes out. And I think that students should be taught to visualize. That’s the one thing missing in all this. The one thing that the student has got to do is to learn that there is a rectangle up there – a white rectangle in a theater – and it has to be filled.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Disney has the best casting. If he doesn’t like an actor he just tears him up.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock , Alfred Hitchcock quotes about actors
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“Never turn your back on a friend.” ~ 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 frightened of eggs, worse than frightened; they revolt me. That round white thing without any holes, and when you break it, inside there’s that yellow thing, round, without any holes… Brrr! 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.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
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“It’s only a movie, and, after all, we’re all grossly overpaid.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Give them pleasure – the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “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.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “I like stories with lots of psychology.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock , Alfred Hitchcock quotes about psycho
- “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “When you can look forward, and the road is clear ahead, and now you are going to create something – that’s as happy as I’d want to be.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don’t want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
- “A woman of mystery is one who also has a certain maturity and whose actions speak louder than words. Any woman can be one, if she keeps those two points in mind. She should grow up-and shut up.” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
