Quote

You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'

David Mamet

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Choice
Choices
Actors
Use
Experience
Young
Time
Life
Response

More quotes by David Mamet

Image
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
Image
Mixed martial arts was invented by Brazilians, whose families had been trained by the Japanese. Those Brazilians came to the U.S., where their invention was bought out, gussied up and presented to the world, which found it good.
David Mamet
Image
Blasphemy and prayer are one. Both assert the existence of a superior power. The first, however, with conviction.
David Mamet
Image
Storytelling is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others.
David Mamet
Image
I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound it's like playing the piano, which I do, too.
David Mamet
Image
I'm not the guy to ask about politics. I'm a gag writer.
David Mamet
Image
Do not internalize the industrial model. You are not one of the myriad interchangeable pieces, but a unique human being, and if you've got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you're learning to say it better.
David Mamet
Image
I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there.
David Mamet
Image
Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.
David Mamet
Image
My idea of perfect happiness is a healthy family, peace between nations, and all the critics die.
David Mamet
Image
I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old.
David Mamet
Image
I tend to write a lot, which I think is the secret to being prolific.
David Mamet
Image
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
Image
Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.
David Mamet
Image
The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.
David Mamet
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
David Mamet
Image
Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.
David Mamet
Image
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