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

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.

In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don’t want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.

I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.

I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Claude Jade is a brave nice young lady. But I don’t give any guarantee what she will do on a taxi’s back seat.

I am to provide the public with beneficial shocks.

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.

If a supernatural power tries to make you a saint or an emperor, refuse it, because the greatest beauty of life hides in having no position whatsoever! Positionless is the best position!

I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient is not by staring at the computer screen but by going to see the patient; it’s only at the bedside that I can figure out what is important.

The best thing about Valentine’s Day is that if you don’t have a lover, you badly remember to get one!

Forest is the best port of the wise man!

My best inorganic friend is science!

The best advice I’ve ever heard about anything is this: Don’t exaggerate! When you work hard, when you sleep long, when you love much, when you are very sad, always remember this advice: Don’t exaggerate!

The best armor is to keep out of range.

True love is no game of the faint-hearted and the weak; it is born of strength and understanding.