“Puns are the highest form of literature.”

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

There is something more important than logic: imagination.

I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

I like stories with lots of psychology.

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.

Television is like the invention of indoor plumbing. It didn’t change people’s habits. It just kept them inside the house.

Give them pleasure – the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.

Never judge a country by its politicians.

I always take the audience into account.

You think she’s pretty, you ought to see my slingshot!

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

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

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

This award is meaningful because it comes from my fellow dealers in celluloid.

One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes.

The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.

I want you to buy this pit bull. This will protect your valuables.’ I don’t own anything very valuable. If I buy the pit bull, that would be the most valuable thing I own. I’d have to buy something to protect it then.

The other night I was lying in bed, looking up at the stars, and I wondered, ‘Where the hell is my roof?

It’s funny – sometimes the strongest individuals feel the worst when events are out of their control, and they can’t really be there for the people they love. I’ve felt it myself.

When I was in school the teachers told me practice makes perfect; then they told me nobody’s perfect so I stopped practicing.

I thought I’d begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.

I can’t be naturalistic enough to make it sound real. So instead, I just wander around aimlessly knowing that I’ll be funny enough with stream of consciousness until I get to the actual explosively funny part.

If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?

I had once thought I would become a doctor but gave up on the thought soon enough. I took up the racquet instead. Later, when I saw my sister studying so much to become a doctor, I was like, ‘Thank God I am a shuttler!’