David Mamet Quotes

How can I be secure? Through amassing wealth beyond all measure? No. And what's beyond measure? That's a sickness. That's a trap. There is no measure. Only greed.

The great movie can be as free of being a record of the progress of the protagonist as is a dream.

Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.

Let the cut tell the story. Otherwise you have not got dramatic action, you've got narration.

Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it.

Film is a collaborative business: bend over.

Many players will not improve because they cannot bear self-knowledge.

I won't ever do e-mail.

In practice we, in the world, must do business with each other.

It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.

Any claim to actual identification as a drama must rest upon the construction of a plot independent of the assignment of affliction to the protagonist.

The essence of jiu-jitsu is philosophy.

IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.

I go out there. I'm out there every day. [Pause] There is nothing out there.

It’s not a lie. It’s a gift for fiction.

Always do things the least interesting way, the most blunt way, and you make a better movie. This is my experience.

Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?

What is our life: (Pause.) it’s looking forward or it’s looking back. And that’s our life. That’s it. Where is the moment?

The leaf of the camomile, parboiled in water, conduces to calm. And yet I do not worship it.

If I could go back would I do it differently? Well, I can't go back.

War is tragedy. The great war stories are tragedies. It's the failure of diplomacy. 'War and Peace, ' 'A Farewell to Arms, ' 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Those are some of the greatest tragedies.

I'm afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly. I get up early in the morning and go to work. I love to write.