360 Quotes by 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 ain't gonna go home. I decided early on that I wasn't going to go home. This is what I'll be doing until they put me in jail or in a coffin.

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.

Anyone ever lost in the wild knows that nature wants you dead.

The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual's greed for power and the electorates' desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.

As long as the protagonist wants something, the audience will want something.

Being a writer in Hollywood is like going to Hitler's Eagle Nest with a great idea for a bar mitzvah.

I won't ever do e-mail.

The Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders; the Arabs would like to kill them all.

When we leave the play saying how spectacular the sets or costumes were, or how interesting the ideas, it means we had a bad time.