David Mamet Quotes - Page 3

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• You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame. Yeah, see, they die of shame. 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives. Thinking.

  David Mamet

  Book, Thinking, People

  "The Edge". www.imdb.com. 1997.

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• Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment.

  David Mamet

  Fun, Entertainment, Ifs

  "State and Main". www.imdb.com. 2000.

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• People only speak to get something.

  David Mamet

  People, Speak

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• The liberals in my neighbourhood wouldn't give away Brentwood to the Palestinians, but they want to give away Tel Aviv.

  David Mamet

  Giving, Want, Palestinian

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• The honest man might observe... that no one gets something for nothing; that politicians go in poor and go out rich; that the Government screws up everything it touches; and that the Will to Believe is best confined to the Religious Venue, as to practice it elsewhere is just too damned expensive.

  David Mamet

  Religious, Believe, Men

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• It's only words... unless they're true.

  David Mamet

  Humorous, Profound, Insane

  David Mamet (1988). “Speed-the-plow: A Play”, p.71, Grove Press

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• Roll back the clock, and every possession of every great country started with a crime.

  David Mamet

  Country, Crime, Clock

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• They say the definition of ambivalence is watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac.

  David Mamet

  Mother, Law, Cadillacs

  "Home is the hunter". www.theguardian.com. February 18, 2000.

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• My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.

  David Mamet

  Greatest Fear, Lines, Beats

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• A dramatic experience concerned with the mundane may inform but it cannot release; and one concerned essentially with the aesthetic politics of its creators may divert or anger, but it cannot enlighten.

  David Mamet

  Theatre, May, Enlightening

  David Mamet (1986). “Writing in restaurants”, Viking Adult

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• I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.

  David Mamet

  Picaresque, Fascinated

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• I hate vacations. There's nothing to do.

  David Mamet

  Hate, Vacation, I Hate

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• I look back on my liberal political beliefs with a sort of wonder - as another exercise in self-involvement - rewarding myself for some superiority I could not logically describe.

  David Mamet

  Exercise, Self, Political

  David Mamet (2011). “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture”, p.129, Penguin

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• The audience will teach you how to act and the audience will teach you how to write and to direct. The classroom will teach you how to obey, and obedience in the theatre will get you nowhere. It’s a soothing falsity.

  David Mamet

  Writing, Theatre, Classroom

  David Mamet (2011). “True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor”, p.19, Vintage

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• There is no such thing as character other than the habitual action, as Mr. Aristotle told us two thousand years ago.

  David Mamet

  Character, Years, Two

  David Mamet (1991). “On directing film”, Viking Pr

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• The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution.

  David Mamet

  Defense, Constitution, Individual

  "David Mamet On Gun Control: Playwright Defends Private Ownership, And More Arts News" by Katherine Brooks, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 28, 2013.

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• I've always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact.

  David Mamet

  Swimming, Ugly, Facts

  David Mamet (1987). “House of Games: A Screenplay”, p.7, Grove Press

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• All rhetorical questions are accusations.

  David Mamet

  Accusation, Rhetorical, Rhetorical Question

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• When we leave the play saying how spectacular the sets or costumes were, or how interesting the ideas, it means we had a bad time.

  David Mamet

  Mean, Ideas, Play

  David Mamet (2010). “Theatre”, p.142, Macmillan

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• All fears are one fear. Just the fear of death. And we accept it, then we are at peace.

  David Mamet

  Fear Of Death, Accepting

  David Mamet (2016). “Mamet Plays: 3: Glengarry Glen Ross; Prairie du Chien; The Shawl; Speed-the-Plow”, p.169, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• They have a desire to put on plays and to fulfill that traditional role of a theater in a community: to be the place where people go to hear the truth.

  David Mamet

  People, Theatre

  "Postgraduate Pioneers of the Mamet Method" by Stacey Okun, www.nytimes.com. August 02, 1987.

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• Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.

  David Mamet

  Ideas, Matter, Spirit

  David Mamet (1986). “Writing in restaurants”, Viking Adult

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• President Obama seems to understand the Constitution as a 'set of suggestions.'

  David Mamet

  President, Suggestions, Constitution

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• If the scene bores you when you read it, rest assured it WILL bore the actors, and will then bore the audience, and we're all going to be back in the breadline.

  David Mamet

  Bores You, Actors, Scene

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• People only speak to get something. If I say, Let me tell you a few things about myself, already your defenses go up; you go, Look, I wonder what he wants from me, because no one ever speaks except to obtain an objective. That's the only reason anyone ever opens their mouth, onstage or offstage. They may use a language that seems revealing, but if so, it's just coincidence, because what they're trying to do is accomplish an objective.

  David Mamet

  People, Trying, Defense

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