David Mamet Quotes

So much for humor. Now for the weather.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

Stanislavsky wrote that the last ninety seconds are the most important in the play. Hollywood wisdom casts it
thus: Turn the thing around in the last two minutes, and you can live quite nicely. Turn it around again in the
last ten seconds and you can buy a house in Bel Air.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

There exists in some stars not only a belligerence but also a litigious bent. I have seen a man take a tape measure to his trailer, as he suspected that it was not quite perfectly equal (as per his contract) in length to that of his fellow player.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

We Americans don't do irony very well. We are a straightforward and self-righteous people, so we are rather good at viciousness and humor but lacking in irony.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

A director cannot deal in fantasy. His job is to take the delineation of a fantasy and transform it into film. He has a certain amount of time and money, and no amount of fantasy will stop the sun going down on a day on which he has not completed his assigned filming.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

A writer’s life is lived, and must be lived, in solitude. For it's a dialogue with one’s thoughts, and a dialogue about one’s thoughts; and the corrosive nature of this struggle is often unpleasant, devouring one’s time and weakening one’s capacity for simple human interaction.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

We conceive the world not through indoctrination, but through osmosis: a culture is the amalgam and the sum of the unwritten laws.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

Do bumper stickers save whales, and free Tibet? By what magical process?

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

The spiritualist and the politician are essentially magicians, one offering diversion, the other security, in exchange for a suspension of common sense.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

You might say it is absurd to claim to determine a person’s deserts on the basis of the shape of his head. It is equally absurd to make the claim on the basis of the color of his skin.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

Our lives today seem more stratified by wealth than race. This is a shame, for one needs more energy to relax sequestered by wealth, than protected in simple settings by one’s clan; for wealth certainly has degrees, and so these differences may create envy and anxiety.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

Actors, thriving on publicity, claim the right to champion “causes”. The nature and profession of the actor is to see himself as the Hero. Without this, the actor cannot act. This indulgence is a boon to the community, its elaboration into do-gooderism is, perhaps, inevitable.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

The worker on the assembly line, on the movie set, and you and I have the same reaction when the Bureaucrats come slumming by: “If the goddamn Suits would finish their tour, stop nodding wisely, and go away, perhaps I might be able to get the job done.”

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

Never feel sorry for a man who owns a plane.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

My father opined that to conserve good feelings, one should express a negative concept in a positive form.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

Just as the true actor loves to act, the true carpenter or seamstress loves that perfect corner.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it's full of surprises & you're constantly getting fucked.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

Show business is and has always been a depraved carnival.

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

@theJDallas What is your story? Can it be shared to others?

[Michael Rogan @scriptbully]

"If you’ve got something to say, say it. And think well of yourself while you learn to say it better." - David Mamet #writing

[David Mamet Quotes @DailyMamet]

People may or may not say what they mean but they always say something designed to get what they want.