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" People ask me, 'What do you do?' And I tell them I'm a writer, but always with the silent reservation, 'I am, of course, not really a writer. Hemingway was a writer.' "
David Mamet
You
Always
People
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" 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. "
David Mamet
Heaven
Fly
Science
" I don't think there's any information to be gotten from television. "
David Mamet
Television
Information
Any
" It's hard to write a good play because it's hard to structure a plot. If you can think of it off the top of your head, so can the audience. "
David Mamet
Head
Audience
Play
" I'm entitled to my political opinions, and I get to vote because I'm an American. "
David Mamet
Political
American
Get
" There is a profound and ineradicable taint of antisemitism in the British. "
David Mamet
British
Profound
" A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue. "
David Mamet
Dialogue
Film
Without
" In practice we, in the world, must do business with each other. "
David Mamet
Business
Practice
Other
" You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?' "
David Mamet
Know
Life
Time
" If you're writing an opinion piece, it's your job to write your opinion. If, on the other hand, you wrote a novel, as Virginia Woolf tells us, it would be inappropriate if you let your novel be influenced by your political opinions. "
David Mamet
Job
Opinion
Writing
" I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old. "
David Mamet
Old
Since
Public
" I don't really have a social life. "
David Mamet
Social
Really
Life
" When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry. "
David Mamet
Government
Media
Better
" I won't ever do e-mail. "
David Mamet
Ever
E-Mail
" I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word. "
David Mamet
You
Say
Neighborhood
" The essence of jiu-jitsu is philosophy. "
David Mamet
Philosophy
Essence
" 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. "
David Mamet
Cherish
Question
Peace
" The quality I most admire in a man is steadfastness. "
David Mamet
Man
Admire
Most
" I look back on my liberal political beliefs with a sort of wonder - as another exercise in self-involvement - rewarding myself for some superiority I could not logically describe. "
David Mamet
Back
Exercise
Look
" My dad was an immigrant kid and a Democrat and a Jew, and we didn't know any Republicans in our group. So I grew up Democratic. My dad was a labor lawyer - a very hardworking guy, a one-horse labor lawyer - and then I went to hippie college and lived in the bubble. "
David Mamet
Lawyer
Immigrant
College
" The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, 'What does the protagonist want?' That's what drama is. It comes down to that. It's not about theme, it's not about ideas, it's not about setting, but what the protagonist wants. "
David Mamet
Way
Always
Drama
" I know very well what it is to be out of work and to be cheated by employers and I know what it is to be an employer. "
David Mamet
Out
Work
Well
" 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
Know
People
Good
" My definition of a 'friend' is, coming from Chicago, someone who says, 'Yeah, sure. You know what? Let's talk about what we can talk about. Let's help each other out. Your politics are none of my business.' "
David Mamet
Know
Business
Friend
" The surprise is half the battle. Many things are half the battle, losing is half the battle. Let's think about what's the whole battle. "
David Mamet
Things
Think
Surprise
" I love working on a typewriter - the rhythm, the sound; it's like playing the piano, which I do, too. "
David Mamet
Sound
Love
Too
" American football seems to resemble soccer in that one scores by putting the ball through the opponent's goal; but football, truly is about land. The Settlers want to move the line of scrimmage Westward, the Native Americans want to move it East. "
David Mamet
Goal
Football
American
" My dad was a labour lawyer, and the ideas that I grew up with - bad management, bad capitalism, robber barons - when I applied this to my own life, I saw that we are all on both sides of the coin. "
David Mamet
Ideas
Bad
Life
" It's hard to write a good plot, it's very hard. "
David Mamet
Very
Hard
Good
" The Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders; the Arabs would like to kill them all. "
David Mamet
Them
Within
Peace
" It's upsetting to be a man in our society. "
David Mamet
Our
Upsetting
Society