Quote

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

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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
Theatre
Lines
Accomplish
Whether
Moved
Write
Case
Couch
Tell
Line
Couches
Character
Cases
Apparent
Writing
Saying
Directions
Trying
Aids
Going
Stage

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A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.
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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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I love all insider memoirs. It doesn't matter whether it's truck-drivers or doctors. I think everybody likes to go backstage, find out what people think and what they talk about and what specialised job they have.
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Welcome to Chicago. This town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide.
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A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian - yet we understand Chekhov and the others.
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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.
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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.
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Our job, as writers is to do our jobs.
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It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
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Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school.
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The pain of losing is diverting. So is the thrill of winning. Winning, however, is lonelier, as those you've won money from are not likely to commiserate with you. Winning takes getting used to.
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In a restaurant one is both observed and unobserved. Joy and sorrow can be displayed and observed unwittingly, the writer scowling naively and the diners wondering, What the hell is he doing?
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The secret knowledge is there's nobody home but us chickens. The Constitution was written by a bunch of regular guys who tried to get together and thrash out a contract under which they could get together that would keep people together.
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Hitchcock denigrated American films, saying they were all 'pictures of people talking' - as, indeed, most of them are.
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I always thought the real violence in Hollywood isn't what's on the screen. It's what you have to do to raise the money.
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The study of acting consists in the main of getting out of one’s own way, and in learning to deal with uncertainty and being comfortable being uncomfortable.
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I won't ever do e-mail.
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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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Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.
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Blasphemy and prayer are one. Both assert the existence of a superior power. The first, however, with conviction.
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