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Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.
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
Opportunity
May
Nags
Knock
Seldom
More quotes by David Mamet
The basis of drama is... the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realises that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilisation and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable.
David Mamet
The subject of drama is The Lie. At the end of the drama THE TRUTH -- which has been overlooked, disregarded, scorned, and denied -- prevails. And that is how we know the Drama is done.
David Mamet
The correct unit of study is not the play it is the scene.
David Mamet
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
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.
David Mamet
Hitchcock denigrated American films, saying they were all 'pictures of people talking' - as, indeed, most of them are.
David Mamet
You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'
David Mamet
We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder ‘censorship,’ we call it ‘concern for commercial viability.
David Mamet
Train yourself for a profession that does not exist.
David Mamet
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.
David Mamet
You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone.
David Mamet
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.
David Mamet
The great movie can be as free of being a record of the progress of the protagonist as is a dream.
David Mamet
We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life.
David Mamet
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.
David Mamet
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
I love Superman. I'm a big fan of anyone who can make his living in his underwear.
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'm entitled to my political opinions, and I get to vote because I'm an American.
David Mamet
I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.
David Mamet
