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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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David Mamet
Age: 76
Born: 1947
Born: November 30
Actor
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Film Director
Film Producer
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Television Producer
Theatrical Director
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Chicago
Illinois
David Alen Mamet
David Alan Mamet
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More quotes by David Mamet
The purpose of technique is to free the unconscious. If you follow the rules ploddingly, they will allow your unconscious to be free.
David Mamet
I'm afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly.
David Mamet
As you all know first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.
David Mamet
The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.
David Mamet
The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, 'What does the protagonist want?' That's what drama is. It comes down to that. It's not about theme, it's not about ideas, it's not about setting, but what the protagonist wants.
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
The correct unit of study is not the play it is the scene.
David Mamet
We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.
David Mamet
Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it.
David Mamet
Welcome to Chicago. This town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide.
David Mamet
The audience requires not information but drama.
David Mamet
A novel it's different. It's kind of exhilarating not to have to cut to the bone constantly. Oh, well I can go over here for a moment. I can say what I think the guy was thinking or what the day looked like or what the bird was doing. If you do that as a playwright, you're dead.
David Mamet
It's upsetting to be a man in our society.
David Mamet
I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old. When 'American Buffalo' came out on Broadway, people would storm out and say, 'How dare he use that kind of language!' Of course I'm alienating the public! That's what they pay me for.
David Mamet
The pain of losing is diverting. So is the thrill of winning. Winning, however, is lonelier, as those you've won money from are not likely to commiserate with you. Winning takes getting used to.
David Mamet
My idea of perfect happiness is a healthy family, peace between nations, and all the critics die.
David Mamet
A dramatic experience concerned with the mundane may inform but it cannot release and one concerned essentially with the aesthetic politics of its creators may divert or anger, but it cannot enlighten.
David Mamet
In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously.
David Mamet
Every fear hides a wish.
David Mamet
The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.
David Mamet