Bernard Herrmann Quotes

"Your views are as narrow as your tie."

"In California, they like to pigeonhole you. From the time I began working for Hitchcock, they decided I was a big suspense man. On other occasions, I've had fantasies of bittersweet romantic stories. I think I'd enjoy writing a good comedy score, but I've never had the luck to be offered such films. Mancini gets the cheerful ones."

"I wrote the main title to 'Psycho' before Saul Bass even did the animation.... After the main title, nothing much happens for 20 minutes or so. Appearances, of course, are deceiving, for in fact the drama starts immediately with the titles.... I am firmly convinced, and so is Hitchcock, that after the main titles you know something terrible must happen. The main title sequence tells you so, and that is its function: to set the drama. You don't need cymbal crashes or records that never sell."

"[Good film music] ...can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, gaiety or misery ... propel narrative swiftly forward, or slow it down."