David Mamet Quotes

Author Image

David Mamet

Profession : Dramatist

Birth : November 30, 1947

I understand that computers, which I once believed to be but a hermaphrodite typewriter-cum-filing cabinet, offer the cyber literate increased ability to communicate. I do not think this is altogether a bad thing, however it may appear on the surface.

David Mamet

Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.

David Mamet

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.

David Mamet

Conservatives believe in smaller government and in the power of the electorate. So I think that we're less likely to try to use a dramatic forum to warp people's political views.

David Mamet

A liberal pretending to be a conservative? That's like a straight person pretending to be gay to get greater acceptance.

David Mamet

I don't really have a social life.

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

Always tell the truth - it's the easiest thing to remember.

David Mamet

They say you can't study Kabbalah until you are at least 40 years old. You know why? You have to have experienced at least one generation making the same mistakes as the previous one.

David Mamet

People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.

David Mamet

When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.

David Mamet

Writing a novel is an incredibly free experience. One puts one's self in a narrative mode. You can go off in any direction - the past, the future, or go laterally, or include one's own beliefs. It's total freedom.

David Mamet

A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience.

David Mamet

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.

David Mamet

I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound; it's like playing the piano, which I do, too.

David Mamet

I'm greedy and ambitious like everybody else.

David Mamet

The honest man might observe... that no one gets something for nothing; that politicians go in poor and go out rich; that the Government screws up everything it touches; and that the Will to Believe is best confined to the Religious Venue, as to practice it elsewhere is just too damned expensive.

David Mamet

There's no such thing as talent; you just have to work hard enough.

David Mamet

My dad was a labour lawyer, and the ideas that I grew up with - bad management, bad capitalism, robber barons - when I applied this to my own life, I saw that we are all on both sides of the coin.

David Mamet

The quality I most admire in a man is steadfastness.

David Mamet