Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.
Anna Deavere Smith
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Disappear
Supposed
Acting
Jobs
Think
Thinking
More quotes by Anna Deavere Smith
Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities.
Anna Deavere Smith
You know, real artists, we expose our flaws. We long for intimacy.
Anna Deavere Smith
Probably the person who said the only color in Los Angeles is green was right.
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
Identity is an assemblage of constellations.
Anna Deavere Smith
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
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
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
People in power have to be careful about what comes out of their mouth. They have to find exactly the right word that can't be attacked.
Anna Deavere Smith
If you say a word often enough it becomes you.
Anna Deavere Smith
I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.
Anna Deavere Smith
I have a lot of optimism about new doctors because I think it's really clear that it's a lot of hard work and no guarantee of a lot of money.
Anna Deavere Smith
My job in my work is not to acquire power it's to question power.
Anna Deavere Smith
That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.
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
I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.
Anna Deavere Smith
Each person has a literature inside them. But when people lose language, when they have to experiment with putting their thoughts together on the spot-that's what I love most. That's where character lives.
Anna Deavere Smith
Be more than ready. Be present in your discipline. Remember your gift. Be grateful for your gift and treat it like a gift. Cherish it, take care of it, and pass it on.
Anna Deavere Smith
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
I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker I just didn't have the resources to do that.
Anna Deavere Smith
