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People ask me, 'What do you do?' And I tell them I'm a writer, but always with the silent reservation, 'I am, of course, not really a writer. Hemingway was a writer.'

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
Asks
Tell
Reservation
Really
Hemingway
Always
Reservations
People
Silent
Writer
Courses
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More quotes by 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.
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A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.
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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.
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Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it's full of surprises, and you're constantly getting f***ed.
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Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.
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In practice we, in the world, must do business with each other.
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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.
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We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life.
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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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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.
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Put. That coffee. Down. Coffee's for closers only.
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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.
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I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.
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When we fear things I think that we wish for them ... every fear hides a wish
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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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You don't know what life is. You know nothing.
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Our job, as writers is to do our jobs.
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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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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.
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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?
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