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
Fun is what you do for yourself. If somebody else does it, it's entertainment.
Interpretation
Fun is a personal experience, while entertainment is something provided by others.
This quote by David Mamet distinguishes between 'fun' and 'entertainment' by suggesting that true enjoyment comes from personal engagement and self-directed activities, whereas entertainment is a passive experience offered by others. It highlights the importance of individual agency in the pursuit of joy.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a workshop on creativity and personal fulfillment.
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.
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.
You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'
It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
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.
Every reiteration of the idea that nothing matters debases the human spirit.
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time... I think I've forgotten this before.
I let my drinking do the talking.
Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.
Let muggles manage without us!
If I were asked to think up a new name for temptation, I should recommend the word 'doorknob', because what are these protuberances put on doors for if not to tempt us.
Ben Franklin was a little stout later in life and it was said that in Paris a young woman, tapping him on his protruding abdomen, said,"Dr. Franklin, if this were on a woman, we'd know what to think." And Franklin replied,"Half an hour ago, Mademoiselle, it was on a woman, and now what do you think?"
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