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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.

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
Names
Keep
Margins
Trying
Outsiders
Always
Frequently
Center
Distance
Tradition
Name

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I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.
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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.
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Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.
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Identity is an assemblage of constellations.
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Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities.
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If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.
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I mean, I think a healthy country is a country where people are healthy physically, and a smart country is a country where people are educated.
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President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds, opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.
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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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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.
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I think some of our most talented people are not going to pick the arts as a way that they're going to spend their lives.
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I am not myself I am the potential of myself.
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Learning is a tunnel experience that makes us think more broadly.
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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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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.
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I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.
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I have never been in a violent movie or television show.
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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.
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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?
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