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My main concern is theater, and theater does not reflect or mirror society. It has been stingy and selfish, and it has to do better.
Anna Deavere Smith
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Anna Deavere Smith
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: September 18
Academic
Actor
Actress
Film Actor
Playwright
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
University Teacher
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Anna Smith
Anna Devere Smith
Anna Deveare Smith
Concern
Theater
Society
Stingy
Doe
Reflect
Better
Mirror
Selfish
Mirrors
Main
More quotes by Anna Deavere Smith
I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.
Anna Deavere Smith
What you are will show, ultimately. Start now, every day, becoming, in your actions, your regular actions, what you would like to become in the bigger scheme of things.
Anna Deavere Smith
If I do three interviews in a day, I can be exhausted, because the process of hearing everyone requires that I empty out myself. While I'm listening, my own judgments and prejudices certainly come up. But I know I won't get anything unless I get those things out of the way.
Anna Deavere Smith
Artists are the people that no matter what, pick up the pen, pick up a paintbrush. They take the time to translate what is happening to create something that resonates deeply with the rest of the people that are caught in the middle of their own reality.
Anna Deavere Smith
Confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition.
Anna Deavere Smith
Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.
Anna Deavere Smith
For me, first of all, I love people, I love ideas.
Anna Deavere Smith
I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.
Anna Deavere Smith
I think what I am is a convener I like to convene people around ideas.
Anna Deavere Smith
I am not myself I am the potential of myself.
Anna Deavere Smith
Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely it is not. It is very hard work.
Anna Deavere Smith
When I got out of acting school, I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots,' and for society, not me, it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion, and I was not.
Anna Deavere Smith
You can't teach talent. You can't teach inspiration. You can teach people critical facilities. You can give them techniques. You can teach discipline. And you can teach them about the business.
Anna Deavere Smith
My work is about giving voice to the unheard, and reiterating the voice of the heard in such a way that you question, or re-examine, what is the truth.
Anna Deavere Smith
Self-esteem does not come from surrounding yourself with people and things that seem to increase your value. Real self-esteem is an integration of an inner-value with things in the world around you.
Anna Deavere Smith
A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.
Anna Deavere Smith
You know, real artists, we expose our flaws. We long for intimacy.
Anna Deavere Smith
You hang around actors, or dancers, the minute you sneeze, everybody has a remedy, and we're all on a million different kinds of diets, and different kinds of things that we do for exercise.
Anna Deavere Smith
I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed.
Anna Deavere Smith
I mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down.
Anna Deavere Smith
