David Mamet Quotes

76 Sourced Quotes

In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us.

David Mamet
We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dreamlife.

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 poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent.

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
I can envision no device more capable of spreading ignorance and illiteracy than the computer. It is, I think, like the atom bomb, a naturally evolved engine of destruction, a sign, like the Tower of Babel, that civilization has run its course.

David Mamet
Always do things the least interesting way, the most blunt way, and you make a better movie. This is my experience.

David Mamet
The subject of drama is The Lie. At the end of the drama THE TRUTH -- which has been overlooked, disregarded, scorned, and denied -- prevails. And that is how we know the Drama is done.

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

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

David Mamet
Marijuana, for example, won't help one determine the correct aspect ratio...

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
Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.

David Mamet
The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.

David Mamet
It's called a confidence game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine.

David Mamet
The terror and beauty of the dream come from the connection of previously unrelated mundanities of life.

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

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

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

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

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

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
The pursuit of Fashion is the attempt of the middle class to co-opt tragedy. In adopting the clothing, speech, and personal habits of those in straitened, dangerous, or pitiful circumstances, the middle class seeks to have what it feels to be the exigent and nonequivocal experiences had by those it emulates.

David Mamet