Good Evening

Today is Sir Alfred Hitchcock's birthday. I think he's my favorite film director.

Some quotes from the "master of suspense" and the "poet of anxiety":

Perhaps the strangest criticism I encounter is that I sometimes put wildly improbable things, grotesque unrealities, on the screen when actually the incident criticised is lifted bodily from real life. The reason is that the strange anomalies of real life, the inconsequences of human nature, appear unreal.

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.

For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.

There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.

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

Television has brought back murder into the home--where it belongs.

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.

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.

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

The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them.