Quote

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

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
Way
Loved
Mimicked
Never
Trouble
Goody
People
Went
Mimic
Child
Subversive
Friends
Corner
Actually
Corners
Children
Activity
Made
Teacher

More quotes by Anna Deavere Smith

Image
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.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
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
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
Each person has a literature inside them.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
I think it's really important to give yourself a very big question that you're working on that you can come home to.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
In my profession, I'm around a lot of people whose bodies are their instruments in one way or another.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
Identity is an assemblage of constellations.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
Perhaps art is a quest for the perfect, or even the imperfect. Reality always falls short on both sides.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
I think as a kid I always liked to listen to people. I loved hearing stories.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
My job in my work is not to acquire power it's to question power.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
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
Image
A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again.
Anna Deavere Smith
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker I just didn't have the resources to do that.
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 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