“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.”

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.

Mystery is an intellectual process. But suspense is essentially an emotional process.

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.’

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.

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.

Actually, I have no regard for money. Aside from its purchasing power, it’s completely useless as far as I’m concerned.

To me Psycho was a big comedy. Had to be.

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

I’m not much into rear window ethics.

Man does not live by murder alone. He needs affection, approval, encouragement and, occasionally, a hearty meal.

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

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.

I would almost say that the best screen actor is the man who can do nothing extremely well.

I’m a writer and, therefore, automatically a suspicious character.

Drama is real life with all the boring parts cut out.

Disney has the best casting. If he doesn’t like an actor he just tears him up.

There are remedies for all things but death.

If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.

Dead men will tell you, never stand in the way of a determined woman.

For love, even god was willing to die.

Wealth, a friend, a wife, and a kingdom may be regained; but this body when lost may never be acquired again.

Now I’m an old Christmas tree, the roots of which have died. They just come along and while the little needles fall off me replace them with medallions.

When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindu, his best friends hear no more of him.

A man is not from where he is born, but where he chooses to die.