110+ David Mamet Quotes (Provocative, Absurdist And Realistic)

David Mamet was an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and film director. He is widely regarded as a master of dramatic structure and as one of the greatest contemporary American playwrights. His works are known for their sharp, spare dialogue and their critiques of contemporary American capitalism, materialism, and morality.

Top 10 David Mamet Quotes

1. Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills.
2. The Oscars demonstrate the will of the people to control and judge those they have elected to stand above them (much, perhaps, as in bygone days, an election celebrated the same).
3. Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?"
4. People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.
5. Being a writer in Hollywood is like going to Hitler's Eagle Nest with a great idea for a bar mitzvah.
6. We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.
7. A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.
8. Encounter: Doubt, Shame, Humiliation. It will finally be worth it. Acting is more about courage than anything else.
9. In a restaurant one is both observed and unobserved. Joy and sorrow can be displayed and observed "unwittingly," the writer scowling naively and the diners wondering, What the hell is he doing?
10. Train yourself for a profession that does not exist.

David Mamet Short Quotes

• My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library.
• Always tell the truth -- it's the easiest thing to remember.
• The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.
• Roll back the clock, and every possession of every great country started with a crime.
• To find beauty in the sad, hope in the midst of loss, and dignity in failure is great poetic art.
• In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us.
• The quality I most admire in a man is steadfastness.
• I hate the computer. I hate their spell-check. I won't ever do e-mail.
• All rhetorical questions are accusations.
• If You can't tell it to me in one sentence, they can't put it in TV Guide.

David Mamet Famous Quotes And Sayings

Having spent too many years in show business, the one thing I see that succeeds is persistence. It's the person who just ain't gonna go home. I decided early on that I wasn't going to go home. This is what I'll be doing until they put me in jail or in a coffin. — David Mamet

Society functions in a way much more interesting than the multiple-choice pattern we have been rewarded for succeeding at in school. Success in life comes not from the ability to choose between the four presented answers, but from the rather more difficult and painfully acquired ability to formulate the questions. — David Mamet

Art is an expression of joy and awe. It is not an attempt to share one's virtues and accomplishments with the audience, but an act of selfless spirit. — David Mamet

A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience. — David Mamet

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

Here's what happens in a play. You get involved in a situation where something is unbalanced. If nothing's unbalanced, there's no reason to have a play. If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad's not dead and asks him if he's had a good time, it's boring. But if something's unbalanced, it must be returned to order. — David Mamet

You get rich through luck. You get rich through crime. You get rich through fulfilling the needs of another. You can be as greedy as you like. If you can’t do one of those three things, you ain’t going to get any money. — David Mamet

Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost. — David Mamet

Don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, tell us how the character said it or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case. — David Mamet

If the scene bores you when you read it, rest assured it WILL bore the actors, and will then bore the audience, and we're all going to be back in the breadline. — David Mamet

A dramatic experience concerned with the mundane may inform but it cannot release; and one concerned essentially with the aesthetic politics of its creators may divert or anger, but it cannot enlighten. — David Mamet

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

There's nothing in the world more silent than the telephone the morning after everybody pans your play. It won't ring from room service; your mother won't be calling you. If the phone has not rung by 8 in the morning, you're dead. — 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

Like Lincoln said: "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," and I feel the same way about the leftist dismantling of the West. If that's not wrong, then nothing is wrong. — David Mamet

You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame. Yeah, see, they die of shame. 'What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?' And so they sit there and they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their lives. Thinking. — David Mamet

A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian - yet we understand Chekhov and the others. — David Mamet

I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound; it's like playing the piano, which I do, too. — David Mamet

Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status. — David Mamet

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

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

The mind is a mill which can incessant turn, 'til its mere operation focus the stress inward and the stones grind themselves to dust. — David Mamet

A novel it's different. It's kind of exhilarating not to have to cut to the bone constantly. Oh, well I can go over here for a moment. I can say what I think the guy was thinking or what the day looked like or what the bird was doing. If you do that as a playwright, you're dead. — David Mamet

The most charming of theories holds that someone other than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's plays -- that he was of too low a state, and of insufficient education. But where in the wide history of the world do we find art created by the excessively wealthy, powerful, or educated? — David Mamet

As you all know first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. — David Mamet

You can't write about history without writing about politics at some point. History is about movements of people. 'What is criminality and what is government' is a theme that runs through every history. — 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

We recipients of the boon of liberty have always been ready, when faced with discomfort, to discard any and all first principles of liberty, and, further, to indict those who do not freely join with us in happily arrogating those principles. — David Mamet

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

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

My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library. I got what little educational foundation I got in the third-floor reading room, under the tutelage of a Coca-Cola sign. — David Mamet

A man stands alone at the plate. This is the time for what? For individual achievement. There he stands alone. But in the field, what? Part of a team. — David Mamet

If you find that a point cannot be made without narration, it is virtually certain that the point is unimportant to the story (which is to say, to the audience). — David Mamet

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. — David Mamet

We cannot live without trade. A society can neither advance nor improve without excess of disposable income. This excess can only be amassed through the production of goods and services necessary or attractive to the mass. A financial system which allows this leads to inequality; one that does not leads to mass starvation. — David Mamet

I don't have any experience with film schools. I suspect that they're useless, because I've had experience with drama schools, and have found them to be useless. — David Mamet

Everyone needs money. That's why they call it money — David Mamet

The audience will teach you how to act and the audience will teach you how to write and to direct. The classroom will teach you how to obey, and obedience in the theatre will get you nowhere. It’s a soothing falsity. — David Mamet

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

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

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

War is tragedy. The great war stories are tragedies. It's the failure of diplomacy. 'War and Peace,' 'A Farewell to Arms,' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Those are some of the greatest tragedies. — David Mamet

I'm greedy and ambitious like everybody else. — David Mamet

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. — David Mamet

We Americans have always considered Hollywood, at best, a sinkhole of depraved venality. And, of course, it is. It is not a Protective Monastery of Aesthetic Truth. It is a place where everything is incredibly expensive. — David Mamet

I hate vacations. There's nothing to do. — David Mamet

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. — David Mamet

I love Superman. I'm a big fan of anyone who can make his living in his underwear. — David Mamet

We all hope. It's what keeps us alive. — David Mamet

Every fear hides a wish. — David Mamet

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. — David Mamet

It is the writer’s job to make the play interesting. It is the actor’s job to make the performance truthful. — David Mamet

Acting is not a genteel profession. Actors used to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart. Those people's performances so troubled the onlookers that they feared their ghosts. An awesome compliment. Those players moved the audience not such that they were admitted to a school, or received a complimentary review, but such that the audience feared for their soul. Now that seems to me something to aim for. — David Mamet

Art is about the spontaneous connection of the artist to his own unconscious - about insight beyond reason. If his insight were reasonable, anyone could do it, but anyone cannot. Only few can, and they are called. — David Mamet

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.' — David Mamet

There is no such thing as character other than the habitual action, as Mr. Aristotle told us two thousand years ago. — David Mamet

When I started out I was a failed actor. — David Mamet

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

Show business is and has always been a depraved carnival. — David Mamet

People only speak to get something. — David Mamet

There is a profound and ineradicable taint of antisemitism in the British. — David Mamet

Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it. — David Mamet

All of us. All of us. We're doomed. — David Mamet

I always thought the real violence in Hollywood isn't what's on the screen. It's what you have to do to raise the money. — David Mamet

You can't rely on the acting to tell the story. — David Mamet

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

The secret knowledge is there's nobody home but us chickens. The Constitution was written by a bunch of regular guys who tried to get together and thrash out a contract under which they could get together that would keep people together. — David Mamet

I like Bach. I like Randy Newman. — David Mamet

Get into the scene late; get out of the scene early. — David Mamet

The true writer must write not the acceptable but the true. — David Mamet

The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create. — David Mamet

The essence of jiu-jitsu is philosophy. — David Mamet

Any time two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of s***. — David Mamet

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

We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder censorship, we call it concern for commercial viability. — David Mamet

You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone. — David Mamet

The audience perceives only what the actor wants to do to the other actor. — David Mamet

The purpose of technique is to free the unconscious. If you follow the rules ploddingly, they will allow your unconscious to be free. — David Mamet

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

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

Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school. — David Mamet

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

It’s not a lie. It’s a gift for fiction. — David Mamet

The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection. — David Mamet

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

The popularity of disaster movies expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious. — David Mamet

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. — David Mamet

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. — David Mamet

The study of acting consists in the main of getting out of one’s own way, and in learning to deal with uncertainty and being comfortable being uncomfortable. — David Mamet

Life Lessons by David Mamet

1. David Mamet's works emphasize the importance of communication and understanding in order to build meaningful relationships. He often explores the consequences of miscommunication and the power of words to create or destroy.
2. David Mamet also emphasizes the importance of being true to yourself and not allowing yourself to be swayed by the opinions of others. He often explores the consequences of conforming to the expectations of others and the power of staying true to your own beliefs.
3. Finally, David Mamet's works highlight the importance of taking responsibility for your actions and not blaming others for your mistakes. He often explores the consequences of taking responsibility for one's actions and the power of self-reflection and personal growth.