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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

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David Mamet
Age: 76
Born: 1947
Born: November 30
Actor
Author
Film Director
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Television Producer
Theatrical Director
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
David Alen Mamet
David Alan Mamet
Things
Think
Thinking
Surprise
Losing
Battle
Half
Whole
Many

More quotes by David Mamet

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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
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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
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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
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I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old. When 'American Buffalo' came out on Broadway, people would storm out and say, 'How dare he use that kind of language!' Of course I'm alienating the public! That's what they pay me for.
David Mamet
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When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.
David Mamet
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It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
David Mamet
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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
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Fun is what you do for yourself. If somebody else does it, it's entertainment.
David Mamet
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I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.
David Mamet
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Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it's full of surprises, and you're constantly getting f***ed.
David Mamet
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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?
David Mamet
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Storytelling is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others.
David Mamet
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Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.
David Mamet
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The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.
David Mamet
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If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.
David Mamet
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I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old.
David Mamet
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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
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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.
David Mamet
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Movies were never an art form, they were entertainment. It just evolved into an art form from there, and it's still evolving in different ways.
David Mamet
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When you come into the theatre, you have to be willing to say, 'We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in this world.' If you're not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that.
David Mamet