David Mamet Zitate auf Englisch

Zitat des Tages von David Mamet:

I'm not an ascetic.

I don't really have a social life.

David Mamet

The individual is not only best qualified to provide his own personal defense, he is the only one qualified to do so: and his right to do so is guaranteed by the Constitution.

David Mamet

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.

David Mamet

I always thought the real violence in Hollywood isn't what's on the screen. It's what you have to do to raise the money.

David Mamet

My dad was an immigrant kid and a Democrat and a Jew, and we didn't know any Republicans in our group. So I grew up Democratic. My dad was a labor lawyer - a very hardworking guy, a one-horse labor lawyer - and then I went to hippie college and lived in the bubble.

David Mamet

The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.

David Mamet

Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills.

David Mamet

In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us.

David Mamet

I look back upon my Liberal political beliefs with a sort of wonder - as another exercise in self-involvement - rewarding myself for some superiority I could not logically describe.

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

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

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

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

David Mamet

Listen, here's the thing about an English degree - if you sat somebody down and asked them to make a list of the writers they admire over the last hundred years, see how many of them got a degree in English.

David Mamet

I'm greedy and ambitious like everybody else.

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

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

David Mamet

My tendency as an actor was to correct people, was to say, 'What if we tried it this way, what about if we tried that way?' That's terrible habit for an actor, but that's a good habit for director. So I became a director.

David Mamet

Culture exists and evolves to relegate to habit categories of interactions the constant conscious reference to which would make human interaction impossible.

David Mamet

One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a church, or a family, healthy. 'One-size-fits-all,' and that size determined by the State has a name, and that name is 'slavery.'

David Mamet

Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.

David Mamet

I'm not an ascetic.

David Mamet

I hate vacations. There's nothing to do.

David Mamet

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

David Mamet

I've always been fascinated by the picaresque.

David Mamet

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

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 quality I most admire in a man is steadfastness.

David Mamet

The liberals in my neighbourhood wouldn't give away Brentwood to the Palestinians, but they want to give away Tel Aviv.

David Mamet

I'm not the guy to ask about politics. I'm a gag writer.

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

Art and mass entertainment and propaganda, they can all be plotted on the same graph, but there is a difference.

David Mamet

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

I like Bach. I like Randy Newman.

David Mamet

My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.

David Mamet

Each culture has its own form of staged combat, evolved from its particular method of street fighting and cleaned up for presentation as a spectacle, e.g. savate, Cornish wrestling, karate, kung-fu.

David Mamet