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

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.

Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement.

Invest in basic research and recruit the best minds.

When they called me with the Nobel call from Secretary General of the Swedish Academy it was twenty minutes to six and he said well that was well hope I’m not disturbing you but I am the Secretary General of the Swedish Academy.

The best thing about Berlin was that I got to be surrounded by people who pursue their ideas for themselves.

The worst in life, we are told, is compatible with the best in art. So too the worst in life is compatible with the best in humour.

Where the sky begins, the horizon ends, despite the best intentions.

Don’t do your best, do whatever it takes.

Negotiating means getting the best of your opponent.

Life is a great and noble calling, not a mean and grovelling thing to be shuffled through as best as we can but a lofty and exalted destiny.