Mamet Speak Quotes & Sayings

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

Nobody ever washes a rental car. — Scott J. Simmerman Ph.D.

People only speak to get something. If I say, Let me tell you a few things about myself, already your defenses go up; you go, Look, I wonder what he wants from me, because no one ever speaks except to obtain an objective. That's the only reason anyone ever opens their mouth, onstage or offstage. They may use a language that seems revealing, but if so, it's just coincidence, because what they're trying to do is accomplish an objective. — David Mamet

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. — David Mamet

People often expect me to be something other than what I am. — Melissa Leo

In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, solely based on our ability to speak the language viciously. — David Mamet

the need to be right at every step is absolutely essential to logical thinking, but quite unnecessary in lateral thinking. It — Franz Badenhorst

However well equipped our language, it can never be forearmed against all possible cases that may arise and call for description: fact is richer than diction. — J.L. Austin

Leave the light and travel the shadow-lands, said Blaise, repeating the inscription on the silver box. — Teresa Flavin

At the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, Sanford Meisner said, 'When you go into the professional world, at a stock theatre somewhere, backstage, you will meet an older actor, someone who has been around awhile. He will tell you tales and anecdotes, about life in the theatre. He will speak to you about your performance and the performances of others, and he will generalize to you, based on his experience and his intuitions, about the laws of the stage. Ignore this man!' — David Mamet

Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them. — William Hazlitt

I am really not tired, which I almost wonder at; for we must have walked at least a mile in this wood. Do not you think we have? '
'Not half a mile,' was his sturdy answer; for he was not yet so much in love as to measure distance, or reckon time, with feminine lawlessness. — Jane Austen

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

A play is basically a long, formalistic polemic. You can write it without the poetry, and if you do, you may have a pretty good play. We know this because we see plays in translation. Not many people speak Norwegian or Danish or whatever guys like Ibsen spoke, or Russian - yet we understand Chekhov and the others. — David Mamet

People only speak to get something. — David Mamet