David Mamet Quotes - Page 6

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.

Storytelling is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others.

My definition of a 'friend' is, coming from Chicago, someone who says, 'Yeah, sure. You know what? Let's talk about what we can talk about. Let's help each other out. Your politics are none of my business.'

I'm entitled to my political opinions, and I get to vote because I'm an American.

"Based on a true story" is a come-on, the aesthetic equivalent of "no loan request refused." For, at best, the creator has fashioned a film based on his understanding of, interpretation of, and reduction of the report of an actual occurrence.

Don't assume I'm dumb because I wear a suit and tie.

You got an all-out prize fight, you wait 'til the fight's over, one guy's left standing and that's how you know who's won.

The dream and the film are the juxtaposition of images in order to answer a question.

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.

Show business is and has always been a depraved carnival.

Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it's full of surprises, and you're constantly getting f***ed.

We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life.

Almost all movie scripts contain material that cannot be filmed.

For it is written that just as it is forbidden to partake of the forbidden, it is forbidden not to partake of the permitted.

The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.

There's something in me that just wants to create dialogue.

I used to think I'd like to be a fireman - in fact, I still would - and the only drawback I could see was coming back to the firehouse, after a day of fighting fires, and still having to put in an eight-hour day writing.

Anyone can write five people trapped in a snowstorm. The question is how you get them into the snowstorm. It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience. To think of a plot that is, as Aristotle says, surprising and yet inevitable, is a lot, lot, lot of work.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law?s treatment.

One can read all one wants, and spend eternities in front of a blackboard with a tutor, but one is not going to learn to swim until one gets in the water.

It is the objective of the protagonist that keeps us in our seats.

Where in the wide history of the world do we find art created by the excessively wealthy, powerful, or educated?

Fun is what you do for yourself. If somebody else does it, it's entertainment.

Culture exists and evolves to relegate to habit categories of interactions the constant conscious reference to which would make human interaction impossible.

I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.