David Mamet Quotes
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American football seems to resemble soccer in that one scores by putting the ball through the opponent's goal; but football, truly is about land. The Settlers want to move the line of scrimmage Westward, the Native Americans want to move it East.
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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.
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There's nothing in the world more silent than the telephone the morning after everybody pans your play. It won't ring from room service; your mother won't be calling you. If the phone has not rung by 8 in the morning, you're dead.
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I always thought the real violence in Hollywood isn't what's on the screen. It's what you have to do to raise the money.
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One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. 'One-size-fits-all,' and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is 'slavery.'
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It's upsetting to be a man in our society.
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In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us.
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I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.
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Cop couldn't find his fucking couch, the living room.
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April to September it's me, it's no fucking Moss! Due respect... he's an order taker. Talks... oh, talks a good game. But look at the board, and it's me John. It's me.
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Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.
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I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.
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In practice we, in the world, must do business with each other.
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Culture exists and evolves to relegate to habit categories of interactions the constant conscious reference to which would make human interaction impossible.
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People ask me, 'What do you do?' And I tell them I'm a writer, but always with the silent reservation, 'I am, of course, not really a writer. Hemingway was a writer.'
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The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.
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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.
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The so-called assault weapons ban is a hoax. It is a political appeal to the ignorant. The guns it supposedly banned have been illegal for 78 years. Did the ban make them 'more' illegal? The ban addresses only the appearance of weapons, not their operation.
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I was fortunate enough to have a rambling youth.
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Each culture has its own form of staged combat, evolved from its particular method of street fighting and cleaned up for presentation as a spectacle, e.g. savate, Cornish wrestling, karate, kung-fu.
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The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle.
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I'm not the guy to ask about politics. I'm a gag writer.
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Listen, here's the thing about an English degree - if you sat somebody down and asked them to make a list of the writers they admire over the last hundred years, see how many of them got a degree in English.
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You get rich through luck. You get rich through crime. You get rich through fulfilling the needs of another. You can be as greedy as you like. If you can't do one of those three things, you ain't going to get any money.