Quote

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?

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
Restaurant
Observed
Scowling
Restaurants
Unobserved
Sorrow
Naively
Writer
Unwittingly
Joy
Diners
Hell
Displayed
Wonder
Wondering

More quotes by David Mamet

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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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The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution.
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If you find that a point cannot be made without narration, it is virtually certain that the point is unimportant to the story (which is to say, to the audience).
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You can't rely on the acting to tell the story.
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If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves? Is this absurd? Yes, and yet the government, of course, is arming criminals.
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I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.
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The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.
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Film is a collaborative business: bend over.
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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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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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I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old.
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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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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.
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We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.
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I won't ever do e-mail.
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Like Lincoln said: If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong, and I feel the same way about the leftist dismantling of the West. If that's not wrong, then nothing is wrong.
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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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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 really have a social life.
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Movies were never an art form, they were entertainment. It just evolved into an art form from there, and it's still evolving in different ways.
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