Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
David Mamet
Age: 77
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
Half
Whole
Many
Things
Think
Thinking
Surprise
Losing
Battle
More quotes by David Mamet
Let the cut tell the story. Otherwise you have not got dramatic action, you've got narration.
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
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
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 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
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
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
I tend to write a lot, which I think is the secret to being prolific.
David Mamet
I was fortunate enough to have a rambling youth.
David Mamet
What I value most in my friends is loyalty.
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
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
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
Show business is and has always been a depraved carnival.
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
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
Characters on stage, like people in what we refer to as real life, do not speak to reveal themselves. They do not speak to conceal themselves. They speak to get whatever it is that they want. It is the only reason they speak.
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
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've always been fascinated by the picaresque.
David Mamet
