Quote

Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.

Anna Deavere Smith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Crucial
Mental
Physical
Discipline

More quotes by Anna Deavere Smith

Image
If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
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
Image
You know, interesting minds usually do hold more than one idea at a time.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
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.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
You've heard that old expression from Shakespeare, 'Just speak the speech'? The words themselves will take you to the reality of the character. And so this led me to interview people.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
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.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
Do you want to be an artist so that the whole world will look at you, or do you want to be an artist because you would like to use your ability to attract attention, to have the world see itself through you differently?
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
For me, first of all, I love people, I love ideas.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
I happen to be a hopeaholic. I tend to look at problems as an opportunity to do some work.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
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
Image
Many people are afraid to talk about race because it's so emotionally loaded. We don't have the vocabulary to talk about it. Every day, our vocabulary seems more and more inadequate.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way, actually. That was a very subversive activity, because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher, people loved it.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
If you say a word often enough it becomes you.
Anna Deavere Smith