David Mamet

All of us. All of us. We're doomed.

— David Mamet

I think I'm going to have a drink.

— David Mamet

I love the British.

— David Mamet

Every fear hides a wish.

— David Mamet

Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school.

— David Mamet

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

— David Mamet

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

— David Mamet

I'm greedy and ambitious like everybody else.

— David Mamet

The audience perceives only what the actor wants to do to the other actor.

— David Mamet

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

— David Mamet

The correct unit of study is not the play; it is the scene.

— David Mamet

I tend to write a lot, which I think is the secret to being prolific.

— David Mamet

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

— David Mamet

They say the definition of ambivalence is watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac.

— 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…

— David Mamet

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

— David Mamet

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

— David Mamet

Roll back the clock, and every possession of every great country started with a crime.

— David Mamet

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

— David Mamet

“Accepted nowhere, belonging nowhere, The Human Ant is forced to roam the world, half-ant, half-cow.”

— David Mamet

Mixed martial arts was invented by Brazilians, whose families had been trained by the Japanese. Those Brazilians came to the U.S., where…

— David Mamet

One can read all one wants, and spend eternities in front of a blackboard with a tutor, but one is not going…

— 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…

— David Mamet

You get rich through luck. You get rich through crime. You get rich through fulfilling the needs of another. You can be…

— David Mamet

“In the meantime: (1) be direct; (2) remember that, being smarter than men, women respond to courtesy and kindness; (3) if you…

— David Mamet

The secret knowledge is there's nobody home but us chickens. The Constitution was written by a bunch of regular guys who tried…

— David Mamet

A good writer gets better only by learning to cut, to remove the ornamental, the descriptive, the narrative, and especially the deeply…

— David Mamet

Having spent too many years in show business, the one thing I see that succeeds is persistence. It's the person who just…

— 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…

— David Mamet

The basis of drama is... the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realises that…

— David Mamet

We cannot live without trade. A society can neither advance nor improve without excess of disposable income. This excess can only be…

— David Mamet

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in…

— David Mamet

The pursuit of Fashion is the attempt of the middle class to co-opt tragedy. In adopting the clothing, speech, and personal habits…

— David Mamet

At the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, Sanford Meisner said, 'When you go into the professional world, at a stock theatre somewhere,…

— David Mamet

Society functions in a way much more interesting than the multiple-choice pattern we have been rewarded for succeeding at in school. Success…

— David Mamet

“[I]n the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people,…

— David Mamet

I was fortunate enough to have a rambling youth.

— David Mamet

I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old.

— David Mamet

Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never comes due…

— David Mamet

There's something in me that just wants to create dialogue.

— David Mamet