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Every scene should be able to answer three questions: Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?

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
Answers
Three
Happens
Screenplays
Film
Questioning
Able
Questions
Every
Answer
Scene
Wants

More quotes by David Mamet

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There's nothing in the world more silent than the telephone the morning after everybody pans your play. It won't ring from room service your mother won't be calling you. If the phone has not rung by 8 in the morning, you're dead.
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The purpose of technique is to free the unconscious. If you follow the rules ploddingly, they will allow your unconscious to be free.
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If You can't tell it to me in one sentence, they can't put it in TV Guide.
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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.
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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.
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I tend to write a lot, which I think is the secret to being prolific.
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To find beauty in the sad, hope in the midst of loss, and dignity in failure is great poetic art.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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Roll back the clock, and every possession of every great country started with a crime.
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Luck, if there is such a thing, is either going to favor everyone equally or going to exhibit a preference for the prepared.
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The audience requires not information but drama.
David Mamet
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Blasphemy and prayer are one. Both assert the existence of a superior power. The first, however, with conviction.
David Mamet
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I won't ever do e-mail.
David Mamet
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We all hope. It's what keeps us alive.
David Mamet
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The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.
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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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We're all put to the test... but it never comes in the form or at the point we would prefer, does it?
David Mamet