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

In a good marriage each is the others better half.

I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.

I’m sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.

I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s somebody nobody knows about.

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.

I’m not against the police; I’m just afraid of them.

I can’t read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.

In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.

Reality is something that none of us can stand, at any time.

A woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing doesn’t want to go to the movies to watch a film about a woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing.

If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book – it makes a very poor doorstop.

One must never set up a murder. They must happen unexpectedly, as in life.

The picture’s over. Now I have to go and put it on film.

To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script.

Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn’t have to cope with the actors and all the rest.

You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.

Parental affection is, perhaps, the blindest modification of perverse self-love

Few, I believe, have had much affection for mankind, who did not first love their parents, their brothers, sisters, and even the domestic brutes, whom they first played with.

Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.

Can’t you see you’re toxic to me there’s no affection just obsession?

The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian.

I was so moved by your false affections I was pushed right off the ledge but love didn’t come to find me abandonment did instead.

Any of us can live without affecting one another.