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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by David Mamet

Image
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.
David Mamet
Image
Luck, if there is such a thing, is either going to favor everyone equally or going to exhibit a preference for the prepared.
David Mamet
Image
We recipients of the boon of liberty have always been ready, when faced with discomfort, to discard any and all first principles of liberty, and, further, to indict those who do not freely join with us in happily arrogating those principles.
David Mamet
Image
Always do things the least interesting way, the most blunt way, and you make a better movie. This is my experience.
David Mamet
Image
The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle.
David Mamet
Image
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
Image
The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.
David Mamet
Image
Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.
David Mamet
Image
I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there.
David Mamet
Image
Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance.
David Mamet
Image
Fun is what you do for yourself. If somebody else does it, it's entertainment.
David Mamet
Image
It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
David Mamet
Image
We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life.
David Mamet
Image
I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.
David Mamet
Image
When we fear things I think that we wish for them ... every fear hides a wish
David Mamet
Image
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.
David Mamet
Image
The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.
David Mamet
Image
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.
David Mamet
Image
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.
David Mamet
Image
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.
David Mamet