“Never turn your back on a friend.”

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.

For me, suspense doesn’t have any value if it’s not balanced by humor.

Luck is everything… My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I’m fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn’t make a good suspense film.

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.

San Francisco would be a good location for a murder mystery.

A woman of mystery is one who also has a certain maturity and whose actions speak louder than words. Any woman can be one, if she keeps those two points in mind. She should grow up-and shut up.

It’s only a movie, and, after all, we’re all grossly overpaid.

Film your murders like love scenes, and film your love scenes like murders.

Puns are the highest form of literature.

Hope! fortune’s cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!

When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit.

A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.

There is no rampart that will hold out against malice.

There’s just enough drinking and cheating songs around without me adding to them. Unless you’ve got something better than “Misery and Gin” by Merle Haggard, you’re beating a dead horse.

Be proud of yourself. Try to eat well…and when you cheat, enjoy it!

No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat.

No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it. Do not look back on happiness — or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it.