The audience perceives only what the actor wants to do to the other actor. — David Mamet Copy Share Image
When we leave the play saying how spectacular the sets or costumes were, or how interesting the ideas, it means we had… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
It is the writer’s job to make the play interesting. It is the actor’s job to make the performance truthful. — David Mamet Copy Share Image
You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
The study of acting consists in the main of getting out of one’s own way, and in learning to deal with uncertainty… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
They have a desire to put on plays and to fulfill that traditional role of a theater in a community: to be… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
My tendency as an actor was to correct people, was to say, 'What if we tried it this way, what about if… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
“When you come into the theater, you have to be willing to say, "We're all here to undergo a communion, to find… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
Anyone can write five people trapped in a snowstorm. The question is how you get them into the snowstorm. It's hard to… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
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… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
At the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, Sanford Meisner said, 'When you go into the professional world, at a stock theatre somewhere,… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
In playwriting, you've got to be able to write dialogue. And if you write enough of it and let it flow enough,… — David Mamet Copy Share Image
If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm… — David Mamet Copy Share
Culture exists and evolves to relegate to habit categories of interactions the constant conscious reference to which would make human interaction impossible. — David Mamet Copy Share
“We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of… — David Mamet Copy Share
Films have degenerated to their original operation as carnival amusement - they offer not drama but thrills. — David Mamet Copy Share
The Oscars demonstrate the will of the people to control and judge those they have elected to stand above them (much, perhaps, as in… — David Mamet Copy Share
I know very well what it is to be out of work and to be cheated by employers and I know what it is… — David Mamet Copy Share
Hitchcock denigrated American films, saying they were all 'pictures of people talking' - as, indeed, most of them are. — David Mamet Copy Share
“Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it's full of surprises, and you're constantly getting fucked.” — David Mamet Copy Share
A dramatic experience concerned with the mundane may inform but it cannot release; and one concerned essentially with the aesthetic politics of its creators… — David Mamet Copy Share
The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to… — David Mamet Copy Share
“As a youth I enjoyed — indeed, like most of my contemporaries, revered — the agitprop plays of Brecht, and his indictments of Capitalism.… — David Mamet Copy Share
