Quotes by Mamet, David




David Alan Mamet (born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, poet, essayist and novelist born to a Jewish family in Flossmoor, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago..


"The pursuit of Fashion is the attempt of the middle class to co-opt tragedy. In adopting the clothing, speech, and personal habits of those in straitened, dangerous, or pitiful circumstances, the middle class seeks to have what it feels to be the exigent and nonequivocal experiences had by those it emulates."

Mamet, David on fashion    Share

"We Americans have always considered Hollywood, at best, a sinkhole of depraved venality. And, of course, it is. It is not a Protective Monastery of Aesthetic Truth. It is a place where everything is incredibly expensive."

Mamet, David on hollywood    Share

"People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want."

Mamet, David on honesty    Share

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

Mamet, David on insecurity    Share

"Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status."

Mamet, David on police    Share

"We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life."

Mamet, David on audiences    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 bygone days, an election celebrated the same)."

Mamet, David on war    Share

"The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent."

Mamet, David on cards    Share

"We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder censorship, we call it concern for commercial viability."

Mamet, David on censorship    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 may divert or anger, but it cannot enlighten."

Mamet, David on theater    Share

"Always tell the truth -- it's the easiest thing to remember."

Mamet, David on truth
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