They say you can't study Kabbalah until you are at least 40 years old. You know why? You have to have experienced at least one generation making the same mistakes as the previous one.
David MametRead
Art is an expression of joy and awe. It is not an attempt to share one's virtues and accomplishments with the audience, but an act of selfless spirit.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art serves as a genuine expression of joy and wonder, rather than a means to showcase personal achievements.
David Mamet emphasizes that true art arises from a place of pure emotion and a selfless intention, motivating artists to create not for recognition or to flaunt their own virtues, but to convey deep feelings of joy and awe. This perspective suggests that the most authentic artistic expressions connect more profoundly with others when they stem from a genuine spirit rather than a desire for validation.
Themes
ArtExpressionJoySelflessnessCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
Utilizing this quote in an art exhibition to emphasize the emotional core of the artwork.
More from David Mamet
All quotes →My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library. I got what little educational foundation I got in the third-floor reading room, under the tutelage of a Coca-Cola sign.
David MametRead
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 MametRead
It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
David MametRead
You can't write about history without writing about politics at some point. History is about movements of people. 'What is criminality and what is government' is a theme that runs through every history.
David MametRead
Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.
David MametRead
Similar quotes
In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.
Doris LessingRead
My touchstone started out being - and is still - exploring the ways by which to make clothing from a single piece of cloth.
Issey MiyakeRead
Am I nostalgic for film? … I mean, it’s had a good run, hasn’t it? You know, I’m not nostalgic for a technology. I’m nostalgic for the kind of films that used to be made that aren’t being made now.
Roger DeakinsRead
I ask of cinema what most North Americans ask of psychedelic drugs.
Alejandro JodorowskyRead
The power of art is that it can connect us to one another, and to larger truths about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human.
Daniel LevitinRead
When you say 'design,' everybody thinks of magazine pages. So it's an emotive word. Everybody thinks it's how something looks, whereas for me, design is pretty much everything.
James DysonRead