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.”

“It seems to me that television is exactly like a gun. Your enjoyment of it is determined by which end of it you're on.”

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

“Estoy seguro que a cualquiera le gusta un buen crimen, siempre que no sea la víctima”

“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.”

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

“The picture's over. Now I have to go and put it on film.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Twenty to life, she got, with time off for good behavior. You come around next spring. I'll introduce you.”

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

“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.”

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

“Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest.-Alfred Hitchcock”

“Vale más partir del cliché que llegar a él.”

“Gee, I'm sorry I didn't hear you in all this rain. Go ahead in, please."Anthony Perkin's Norman BatesTalking To Janet Leigh's Marion Crane.”

“Puns are the highest form of literature.”

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

“I understand that the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, astatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equaled the purity of sound achieved by the pig.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“If I won't be myself, who will?”

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

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

“There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.”

“Ideas come from everything”

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

“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.”

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

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

“Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.”

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

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

“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.”