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The correct unit of study is not the play it is the scene.
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
Play
Unit
Units
Correct
Scene
Study
More quotes by David Mamet
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.
David Mamet
In practice we, in the world, must do business with each other.
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
I know very well what it is to be out of work and to be cheated by employers and I know what it is to be an employer.
David Mamet
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
Storytelling is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others.
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
The terror and beauty of the dream come from the connection of previously unrelated mundanities of life.
David Mamet
Being a writer in Hollywood is like going to Hitler's Eagle Nest with a great idea for a bar mitzvah.
David Mamet
It is not the constitutional prerogative of the Government to determine needs.
David Mamet
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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Blasphemy and prayer are one. Both assert the existence of a superior power. The first, however, with conviction.
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
I didn't knowingly meet a conservative until, to my shame, I was 60 years old and sat down and said, 'Wow, I don't understand what this guy's talking about, but he has a great civility about him. Perhaps I better investigate this thing.'
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 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.
David Mamet
What we're trying to do is find two or more shots the juxtaposition of which will give us the idea.
David Mamet
I was fortunate enough to have a rambling youth.
David Mamet
We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law?s treatment.
David Mamet
You can't rely on the acting to tell the story.
David Mamet