360 Quotes by David Mamet

In a restaurant one is both observed and unobserved. Joy and sorrow can be displayed and observed “unwittingly,” the writer scowling naively and the diners wondering, What the hell is he doing?

The millennia-long evolution of the human family as a means of dealing with the environment was discarded by my generation of fantasists, in favor of a concept not only artificial, but inchoate: “freedom” – the pursuit of which has led to misery.

The job of the artist, is to say, wait a second, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let’s re-examine it.

If You can’t tell it to me in one sentence, they can’t put it in TV Guide.

But shame, a breaking open of the heart before God, leads, so the Rabbis say, to that true self-knowledge necessary for change. For.

There’s nothing in the world more silent than the telephone the morning after everybody pans your play. It won’t ring from room service; your mother won’t be calling you. If the phone has not rung by 8 in the morning, you’re dead.

Make the audience wonder what’s going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.

I’m afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly.

Flattery takes away the capacity of the listener to make a rational, unbiased opinion.