"You know what luck is? Luck is believing you're lucky, that's all... To hold a front position in this rat-race, you've got to believe you are lucky."

"Stella. Hey, Stella!"

"[to Stanley] It won't be the sort of thing you have in mind. This man is a gentleman - he respects me. What he wants is my companionship. Having great wealth sometimes makes people lonely. A cultivated woman - a woman of breeding and intelligence - can enrich a man's life immeasurably. I have those things to offer, and time doesn't take them away. Physical beauty is passing - a transitory possession. But beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart - I have all those things - aren't taken away but grow! Increase with the years! Oh! Strange that I should be called a destitute woman when I have all these treasures locked in my heart. I think of myself as a very, very rich woman. But I have been foolish - casting my pearls before....swine. Yes, swine! And I'm thinking not only of you, but of your friend Mr. Mitchell. He came here tonight, he did, coming in his work clothes, to repeat slander, vicious stories he'd gotten from you. I gave him his walking papers. But then he returned, he returned with a box of roses to beg my forgiveness. He implored my forgiveness. Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the one unforgivable thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty. So I said to him, 'Thank you,' but it was foolish to think that we could ever adapt ourselves to each other. Our ways of life are too different. Our backgrounds are incompatible. So farewell, my friend and let there be no hard feelings."

"Whoever you are: I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

"Tarantula was the name of it! I stayed at a hotel called the Tarantula Arms! Yes, a big spider. That's where I brought my victims. Yes, I have had many meetings with strangers. After the death of Allan, meetings with strangers was all I seemed able to fill my empty heart with. I think it was panic — just panic — that drove me from one to another, searching for some protection. Here, there and then in the most unlikely places. Then, at last, in a seventeen-year-old boy. But someone wrote to the superintendent about it: "This woman is morally unfit for her position!" True? Yes... unfit somehow anyway."

"[to little boy] Alright, kid, let's put I the chains. [she shackles and chains with key in the little boy's wristhand] Now stay there, kid. [Locked the door with a key]"

"I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth."

"Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the one unforgivable thing in my opinion and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty."

"You're gonna be all right now, Madeleine. Don't you see? You've given me something to work on now! I'm gonna take you down there to that mission this afternoon and when you see it, you'll remember when you saw it before, and it'll finish your dream. It will destroy it. I promise you. All right?"

"Well, I think that explains it. Anyone could become obsessed with the past with a background like that!"

"Barbara Bel Geddes - Marjorie 'Midge' Wood"

"Kim Novak - Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton"

"Jimmy Stewart - Det. John 'Scottie' Ferguson"

"A mystery revised... A Master Remembered! (1996 Restored Film Premiere)"

"Alfred Hitchcock engulfs you in a whirlpool of terror and tension!"

"Pop Leibel: Oh yes, I remember. Carlotta, beautiful Carlotta, sad ... It (the McKittrick Hotel) was hers. It was built for her many years ago by ... the name I do not remember, a rich man, powerful man. It is not an unusual story. She came from somewhere small to the south of the city. Some say from a mission settlement. Young, yes, very young. And she was found dancing and singing in cabaret by that man. And he took her and built for her the great house in the Western Addition. And, uh, there was, there was a child, yes, that's it, a child, a child. I cannot tell you exactly how much time passed or how much happiness there was, but then he threw her away. He had no other children. His wife had no children. So, he kept the child and threw her away. You know, a man could do that in those days. They had the power and the freedom. And she became the sad Carlotta, alone in the great house, walking the streets alone, her clothes becoming old and patched and dirty. And the mad Carlotta, stopping people in the streets to ask, Where is my child? Have you seen my child? She died by her own hand. There are many such stories."

"Tom Helmore - Gavin Elster"

"[in a letter to Scottie] Dear Scottie: And so you found me. This is the moment that I've dreaded and hoped for, wondering what I would say and do if I ever saw you again. I wanted so to see you again just once. Now I'll go and you can give up your search. I want you to have peace of mind. You have nothing to blame yourself for. You were the victim. I was the tool, and you were the victim of Gavin Elster's plan to murder his wife. He chose me to play the part because I looked like her, dressed me up like her. He was quite safe because she lived in the country and rarely came to town. He chose you to be a witness to a suicide. Carlotta's story was part real, part invented to make you testify that Madeleine wanted to kill herself. He knew of your illness. He knew you'd never get up the stairs to the tower. He planned it so well. He made no mistakes. I made a mistake. I fell in love. That wasn't part of the plan. I'm still in love with you. And I want you so to love me. If I had the nerve, I'd stay and lie, hoping that I could make you love me again as I am, for myself, and so forget the other and forget the past. But I don't know whether I have the nerve to try."

"I heard that one before too. I remind you of someone you used to be madly in love with, but then she ditched ya for another guy. And you've been carrying the torch ever since. Then you saw me and something clicked."

"Sorry Scottie, that was rotten. He had no right to speak to you like that. It was my responsibility. I shouldn't have got you involved. No, there's nothing you have to say to me. I'm getting out, Scottie. For good. I can't stay here. I'm going to wind up her affairs, and mine, and get away as far as I can. Europe perhaps. I probably never will come back. Goodbye, Scottie. If there's anything I can do for you before I go? There's no way for them to understand. You and I know who killed Madeleine."

"My wife Madeleine has several pieces of jewelry that belonged to Carlotta. She inherited them. Never wore them, they were too old-fashioned, until now. Now when she's alone, she takes them out and looks at them, handles them gently, curiously. Puts them on and stares at herself in the mirror. Then goes into that other world, is someone else again."

"The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast. I should have liked to have lived here then. Color, excitement, power, freedom."

"They took the idols and smashed them, the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos! And who've we got now? Some nobodies!"

"We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!"

"Nancy Olson - Betty Schaefer"

"No one leaves a star. That's what makes one a star."

"Erich von Stroheim - Max von Mayerling"

"William Holden - Joe Gillis"

"Gloria Swanson - Norma Desmond"

"I just want to tell you all how happy I am to be back in the studio, making a picture again! You don't know how much I've missed all of you. And I promise you I'll never desert you again because after Salome we'll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! There's nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!… All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

"Without me, there wouldn't be any Paramount studio."

"The stars are ageless, aren't they?"

"There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!"

"You'll be in the grip of love's strangest trip!"

"Robert Gist - Leslie Hennessy"

"Norma Varden - Mrs. Cunningham"

"Jonathan Hale - Mr. Anthony"

"Marion Lorne - Mrs. Anthony"

"Kasey Rogers - Miriam Joyce Haines"

"Patricia Hitchcock - Barbara Morton"

"Leo G. Carroll - Sen. Morton"

"Robert Walker - Bruno Anthony"

"Ruth Roman - Anne Morton"

"Farley Granger - Guy Haines"

"It's off the beaten track!"

"A tennis star plays a match with murder!"

"It starts with a shriek of a train whistle...and ends with shrieking excitement!"

"I still think it would be wonderful to have a man love you so much he'd kill for you."

"I beg your pardon, but aren't you Guy Haines? ...I certainly admire people who do things. People who do things are important. Me, I never seem to do anything."