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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
Battle
Half
Whole
Many
Things
Think
Thinking
Surprise
Losing

More quotes by David Mamet

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I'm afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly.
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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.
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They have a desire to put on plays and to fulfill that traditional role of a theater in a community: to be the place where people go to hear the truth.
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Any time two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of s***.
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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.
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What we're trying to do is find two or more shots the juxtaposition of which will give us the idea.
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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.
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When we fear things I think that we wish for them ... every fear hides a wish
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Encounter: Doubt, Shame, Humiliation. It will finally be worth it. Acting is more about courage than anything else.
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Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.
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The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.
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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.
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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.
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The correct unit of study is not the play it is the scene.
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Before you can steal fire from the Gods you gotta be able to get coffee for the director.
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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.
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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.
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I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old.
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American football seems to resemble soccer in that one scores by putting the ball through the opponent's goal but football, truly is about land. The Settlers want to move the line of scrimmage Westward, the Native Americans want to move it East.
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You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'
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