David Mamet Quotes, Thoughts and images

Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.

We all die in the end, but there's no reason to die in the middle.

We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?

I hate vacations. There's nothing to do.

Luck, if there is such a thing, is either going to favor everyone equally or going to exhibit a preference for the prepared.

Train yourself for a profession that does not exist.

Being a writer in Hollywood is like going to Hitler's Eagle Nest with a great idea for a bar mitzvah.

It's only words... unless they're true.

Every fear hides a wish.

The first amendment ensures not that speech will be fair, but that it will be free. It cannot be both.

There's no such thing as talent; you just have to work hard enough.

The audience requires not information but drama.

The job of the artist, is to say, wait a second, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's re-examine it.

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.

Encounter: Doubt, Shame, Humiliation. It will finally be worth it. Acting is more about courage than anything else.

Anyone ever lost in the wild knows that nature wants you dead.

We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.

It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs.

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.

Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.

Welcome to Chicago. This town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide.

The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.

To find beauty in the sad, hope in the midst of loss, and dignity in failure is great poetic art.

People only speak to get something.

Roll back the clock, and every possession of every great country started with a crime.

I've always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact.

I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.

As long as the protagonist wants something, the audience will want something.

All rhetorical questions are accusations.

My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.

The liberals in my neighbourhood wouldn't give away Brentwood to the Palestinians, but they want to give away Tel Aviv.

Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment.

No one enjoys being equal.

President Obama seems to understand the Constitution as a 'set of suggestions.'

The true writer must write not the acceptable but the true.

Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.

All fears are one fear. Just the fear of death. And we accept it, then we are at peace.

They say the definition of ambivalence is watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac.

Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.

The conscious mind is going to suggest the obvious, the cliché, because these things have offered the security of having succeeded in the past.