360 Quotes by David Mamet

I’m greedy and ambitious like everybody else.

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.

You can’t write about history without writing about politics at some point. History is about movements of people. ‘What is criminality and what is government’ is a theme that runs through every history.

Like Lincoln said: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” and I feel the same way about the leftist dismantling of the West. If that’s not wrong, then nothing is wrong.

It is more frightening but it is not less productive to go your own way, to form your own theatre company, to write and stage your own plays, to make your own films. You have an enormously greater chance of eventually presenting yourself to, and eventually appealing to, an audience by striking out on your own, by making your own plays and films, than by submitting to the industrial model of the school and studio.

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

Don’t assume I’m dumb because I wear a suit and tie.

Characters on stage, like people in what we refer to as “real life,” do not speak to reveal themselves. They do not speak to conceal themselves. They speak to get whatever it is that they want. It is the only reason they speak.

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