“It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recognized philosophy. Some part of you felt intimately invaded, threatened; some other part fell to its knees and sobbed in gratitude that it was no longer alone.”
“I'm your nightmare. Did you think you were done with nightmares, now you've become one?”
“Never relinquish your terrors. That's when they catch you.”
“I press my hands against my chest, wishing I could somehow be even closer to him. I hate skin; I hate bones and bodies. I want to curl up inside of him and be carried there forever.”
“Horror is the badge of humanity, worn proudly, self-righteously, and often falsely.”
“And what was I if not death's ghostwriter?”
“Ah, relationships. If he was lucky, Luke thought, he would never have another one.”
“But if I die without trying again, I'm a coward. I don't mind having regrets about stuff I've done. It's the regrets about stuff I haven't done that bother me.”
“Nowadays, the work of Alfred Hitchcock is admired all over the world. Young people who are just discovering his art through the current rerelease of Rear Window and Vertigo, or through North by Northwest, may assume his prestige has always been recognized, but this is far from being the case.
In the fifties and sixties, Hitchcock was at the height of his creativity and popularity. He was, of course, famous due to the publicity masterminded by producer David O. Selznick during the six or seven years of their collaboration on such films as Rebecca, Notorious, Spellbound, and The Paradine Case.
His fame had spread further throughout the world via the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the mid-fifties. But American and European critics made him pay for his commercial success by reviewing his work with condescension, and by belittling each new film.
(...)
In examining his films, it was obvious that he had given more thought to the potential of his art than any of his colleagues. It occurred to me that if he would, for the first time, agree to respond seriously to a systematic questionnaire, the resulting document might modify the American critics’ approach to Hitchcock.
That is what this book is all about.”
“Your sense of humor is not for everyone, but I have to say it's growing on me. Like an out-of-control fungus.”
“Единствената разлика между живота в коловоз и гроба е в дълбочината.”
“He was said to ride hallooing through the night, to be ready to shoot, hunt, or swim anywhere in any weather, to be able to drink half a dozen young lieutenants from nearby garrisons under the table, to wake up his occasional guests by firing a pistol through their bedroom windows, to have seduced every peasant girl in all the villages, to have released a fox in a lady’s drawing room.”
“So I wait for him because I always have, because out of all the moments that went wrong, I think there were just as many that went right, just as much love and heat and want as hurt, disappointment, and cruelty. I want to believe there's a balance here, that out of this tragedy will come some good, and there will be a happy ending.”
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