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: 77
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
Going
Stage
Aids
Lines
Theatre
Whether
Accomplish
Write
Moved
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Case
Couch
Character
Line
Couches
Writing
Cases
Apparent
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Directions

More quotes by David Mamet

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Writing a novel is an incredibly free experience. One puts one's self in a narrative mode. You can go off in any direction - the past, the future, or go laterally, or include one's own beliefs. It's total freedom.
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My idea of perfect happiness is a healthy family, peace between nations, and all the critics die.
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Storytelling is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others.
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The honest man might observe... that no one gets something for nothing that politicians go in poor and go out rich that the Government screws up everything it touches and that the Will to Believe is best confined to the Religious Venue, as to practice it elsewhere is just too damned expensive.
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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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In practice we, in the world, must do business with each other.
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You get rich through luck. You get rich through crime. You get rich through fulfilling the needs of another. You can be as greedy as you like. If you can’t do one of those three things, you ain’t going to get any money.
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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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Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.
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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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The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.
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Every fear hides a wish.
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A man stands alone at the plate. This is the time for what? For individual achievement. There he stands alone. But in the field, what? Part of a team.
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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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Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status.
David Mamet
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All of us. All of us. We're doomed.
David Mamet
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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.
David Mamet
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I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there.
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Being among my people is a delight. We Jews live among ourselves. I love it.
David Mamet
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Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.
David Mamet