David Mamet

“Mixed martial arts was invented by Brazilians, whose families had been trained by the Japanese. Those Brazilians came to the U.S., where their invention was bought out, gussied up and presen...”

“It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.”

“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 stat...”

“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.”

“You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'”

“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.”

“I look back upon 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.”

“Writing a novel is an incredibly free experience. One puts one's self in a narrative mode. You can go off in any direction - the past, the future, or go laterally, or include one's own belie...”

“The liberals in my neighbourhood wouldn't give away Brentwood to the Palestinians, but they want to give away Tel Aviv.”

“One person may need (or want) more leisure, another more work; one more adventure, another more security, and so on. It is this diversity that makes a country, indeed a state, a city, a chur...”

“It's hard to write a good plot, it's very hard.”

“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.”

“A liberal pretending to be a conservative? That's like a straight person pretending to be gay to get greater acceptance.”

“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 n...”

“My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line.”

“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 no...”

“I've always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact.”

“I don't really have a social life.”

“The quality I most admire in a man is steadfastness.”

“President Obama seems to understand the Constitution as a 'set of suggestions.'”