David Mamet Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No one enjoys being equal.

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

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

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

All rhetorical questions are accusations.

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

I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.

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

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

People only speak to get something.

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

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

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

Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The audience requires not information but drama.

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

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

Every fear hides a wish.

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

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

Train yourself for a profession that does not exist.

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

I hate vacations. There's nothing to do.

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

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

Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.