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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

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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
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The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.
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We all hope. It's what keeps us alive.
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Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.
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They say the definition of ambivalence is watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac.
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It is the writer’s job to make the play interesting. It is the actor’s job to make the performance truthful.
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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.
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I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there.
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The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, 'What does the protagonist want?' That's what drama is. It comes down to that. It's not about theme, it's not about ideas, it's not about setting, but what the protagonist wants.
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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?
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It's upsetting to be a man in our society.
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I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.
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I tend to write a lot, which I think is the secret to being prolific.
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The Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders the Arabs would like to kill them all.
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Show business is and has always been a depraved carnival.
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War is tragedy. The great war stories are tragedies. It's the failure of diplomacy. 'War and Peace,' 'A Farewell to Arms,' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Those are some of the greatest tragedies.
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We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life.
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I don't really have a social life.
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I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.
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We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?
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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.
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