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I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.

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
Took
Cherished
Father
Minister
Away
Funeral
Remember
Ministers
Life
Metaphor
Like
Kept
Using
Prism
Image
Prisms

More quotes by Anna Deavere Smith

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You are an explorer. You understand that every time you go into the studio, you are after something that does not yet exist.
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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.
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I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.
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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.
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The American idea is as promising, imaginative, and full of the unexpected as the land itself. The land represents freedom - the frontier, the ability to make a new future with your own bare hands.
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I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.
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Art simply can’t be stopped.
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I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker I just didn't have the resources to do that.
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I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.
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That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.
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I see myself as not a typical theater person, but a person who uses the theater as a place to meet people and explore ideas.
Anna Deavere Smith
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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
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I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.
Anna Deavere Smith
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I am lucky: I have fantastic doctors and a fantastic dentist.
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You know if we were to look back and how we were in 1955 living in Jim Crow, living in segregation, living in segregated schools, it's hard to believe that it was America, but it really was.
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Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.
Anna Deavere Smith
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Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance.
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We spend so much time bantering about the words when the real open conversations might very well be our actions. I worry about our rhetoric.
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Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.
Anna Deavere Smith
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Art should take what is complex and render it simply. It takes a lot of skill, human understanding, stamina, courage, energy, and heart to do that.
Anna Deavere Smith