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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 -
It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
David Mamet
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Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.
David Mamet -
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.
David Mamet -
My dad was a labour lawyer, and the ideas that I grew up with - bad management, bad capitalism, robber barons - when I applied this to my own life, I saw that we are all on both sides of the coin.
David Mamet -
Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.
David Mamet -
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.
David Mamet -
The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.
David Mamet
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When I started out I was a failed actor.
David Mamet -
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 -
I was fortunate enough to have a rambling youth.
David Mamet -
I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
David Mamet -
Before you can steal fire from the Gods you gotta be able to get coffee for the director
David Mamet -
The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.
David Mamet
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We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dreamlife.
David Mamet -
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.
David Mamet -
The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, 'What does the protagonist want?' That's what drama is. It comes down to that. It's not about theme, it's not about ideas, it's not about setting, but what the protagonist wants.
David Mamet -
It's hard to write a good plot, it's very hard.
David Mamet -
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.
David Mamet -
My tendency as an actor was to correct people, was to say, 'What if we tried it this way, what about if we tried that way?' That's terrible habit for an actor, but that's a good habit for director. So I became a director.
David Mamet
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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.
David Mamet -
My dad was an immigrant kid and a Democrat and a Jew, and we didn't know any Republicans in our group. So I grew up Democratic. My dad was a labor lawyer - a very hardworking guy, a one-horse labor lawyer - and then I went to hippie college and lived in the bubble.
David Mamet -
I didn't knowingly meet a conservative until, to my shame, I was 60 years old and sat down and said, 'Wow, I don't understand what this guy's talking about, but he has a great civility about him. Perhaps I better investigate this thing.'
David Mamet -
I won't ever do e-mail.
David Mamet