David Mamet Quotes
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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.'
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In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously.
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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.
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Then I'm over the fucking top and you owe me a Cadillac. And I don't want any fucking shit and I don't give a shit.
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Writing a novel is an incredibly free experience. One puts one's self in a narrative mode. You can go off in any direction - the past, the future, or go laterally, or include one's own beliefs. It's total freedom.
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We don't have to worry about making it interesting; all we have to worry about is getting rid of the pig.
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They say you can't study Kabbalah until you are at least 40 years old. You know why? You have to have experienced at least one generation making the same mistakes as the previous one.
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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.
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Where have you been, Shelly? Bruce and Harriet Nyborg. Do you want to see the memos...? They're nuts... they used to call in every week ... Did you see how they were living? ... The people are insane. They just like talking to salesmen.
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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 find out whose fuckin' cousin you are, I'm gonna go to him and figure out a way to have your ass, FUCK YOU!
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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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Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.
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Or me lying in the... Let me tell ya... Lying in bed the next day, she brought me cafe au lait, she gives me a cigarette. My balls feel like concrete. Eh?
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That's fucked. That's fucked. You don't look at the fucking percentage. You look at the gross.
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What I value most in my friends is loyalty.
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President Obama seems to understand the Constitution as a 'set of suggestions.'
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Well, to the law, you’re an accessory. Before the fact.
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It's hard to write a good plot, it's very hard.
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Patel? Fuck you. Fuckin' Shiva handed him a million dollars, told him sign the deal, he wouldn't sign. And Vishnu, too into the bargain.
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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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Roll back the clock, and every possession of every great country started with a crime.
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My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library.
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My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.