David Mamet quotes - page 4

The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection. (David Mamet)
Anyone ever lost in the wild knows that nature wants you dead. View quote
David Mamet
It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs. View quote
David Mamet
The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
David Mamet
The basis of drama is... the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realises that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilisation and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable. View quote
David Mamet
To find beauty in the sad, hope in the midst of loss, and dignity in failure is great poetic art. View quote
David Mamet
Roll back the clock, and every possession of every great country started with a crime. View quote
David Mamet
The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution. View quote
David Mamet
I've always been fascinated by the picaresque. (David Mamet)
Welcome to Chicago. This town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide. View quote
David Mamet
I look back on my liberal political beliefs with a sort of wonder - as another exercise in self-involvement - rewarding myself for some superiority I could not logically describe. View quote
David Mamet
All rhetorical questions are accusations. View quote
David Mamet
No one enjoys being equal. View quote
David Mamet
Listen, here's the thing about an English degree - if you sat somebody down and asked them to make a list of the writers they admire over the last hundred years, see how many of them got a degree in English. View quote
David Mamet
My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line. View quote
David Mamet
As long as the protagonist wants something, the audience will want something. View quote
David Mamet
All fears are one fear. Just the fear of death. And we accept it, then we are at peace. View quote
David Mamet
The true writer must write not the acceptable but the true. View quote
David Mamet
Get into the scene late; get out of the scene early. (David Mamet)
The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment. View quote
David Mamet
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. View quote
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. View quote
David Mamet
I love all insider memoirs. It doesn't matter whether it's truck-drivers or doctors. I think everybody likes to go backstage, find out what people think and what they talk about and what specialised job they have. View quote
David Mamet