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I pray you indulge me for a space, for I am going to set out on a speech which may have some duration, but whose theme may be gleaned from its opening phrase: how dare you.

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
May
Theme
Going
Opening
Pray
Dare
Gleaned
Praying
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Indulge
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Phrases

More quotes by David Mamet

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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.
David Mamet
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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.
David Mamet
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I love Superman. I'm a big fan of anyone who can make his living in his underwear.
David Mamet
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Every scene should be able to answer three questions: Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?
David Mamet
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Here's what happens in a play. You get involved in a situation where something is unbalanced. If nothing's unbalanced, there's no reason to have a play. If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad's not dead and asks him if he's had a good time, it's boring. But if something's unbalanced, it must be returned to order.
David Mamet
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The great movie can be as free of being a record of the progress of the protagonist as is a dream.
David Mamet
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Characters on stage, like people in what we refer to as real life, do not speak to reveal themselves. They do not speak to conceal themselves. They speak to get whatever it is that they want. It is the only reason they speak.
David Mamet
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IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.
David Mamet
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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
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American football seems to resemble soccer in that one scores by putting the ball through the opponent's goal but football, truly is about land. The Settlers want to move the line of scrimmage Westward, the Native Americans want to move it East.
David Mamet
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If You can't tell it to me in one sentence, they can't put it in TV Guide.
David Mamet
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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
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In practice we, in the world, must do business with each other.
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.
David Mamet
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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.
David Mamet
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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.
David Mamet
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If you're writing an opinion piece, it's your job to write your opinion. If, on the other hand, you wrote a novel, as Virginia Woolf tells us, it would be inappropriate if you let your novel be influenced by your political opinions.
David Mamet
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For it is written that just as it is forbidden to partake of the forbidden, it is forbidden not to partake of the permitted.
David Mamet
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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
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Encounter: Doubt, Shame, Humiliation. It will finally be worth it. Acting is more about courage than anything else.
David Mamet