The most famous Alfred Hitchcock quotes
The top 3 according to 31 votes from people: The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema. · Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. · I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.. (Updated Dec 5, 2018.)
"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out", actors as cattle and murder brought back into the home: the Master of Suspense's wittiest and best-known lines, with where he said them.
Top 12
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1
The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema.
Quoted in Hitchcock by François Truffaut (1967).
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2
Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
Picture Parade, BBC (5 July 1960).
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3
I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.
Newsweek (11 June 1956).
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4
One of television's great contributions is that it brought murder back into the home, where it belongs.
National Observer (15 August 1966).
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5
I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them.
Quoted in Hitchcock by François Truffaut (1985).
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6
You can't direct a Laughton picture. The best you can hope for is to referee.
Films and Filming (1963).
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7
There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.
Attributed to him in Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion (1984).
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8
I deny that I ever said actors are cattle. What I said was, "Actors should be treated like cattle."
Speech at the Screen Producers Guild awards.
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9
Puns are the highest form of literature.
The Dick Cavett Show (8 June 1972).
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10
Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn't change people's habits. It just kept them inside the house.
NY Journal-American (25 August 1965).
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11
Self-plagiarism is style.
The Observer (8 August 1976).
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12
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.
Quoted in Hitchcock by François Truffaut (1967).
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
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Comments (1)
"Self-plagiarism is style" is the best defence any director has ever given. Iconic.