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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.

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
Thinking
Remember
Caring
Persons
Helps
Person
Folks
Need
Across
Right
Leadership
Needs
Helping
Way
Next
Think
Part

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Probably the person who said the only color in Los Angeles is green was right.
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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.
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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.
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Confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition.
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If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.
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If you say a word often enough it becomes you.
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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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Then everyone leaves, and you are left, each night, to your own devices with a crowd of interesting people - most of whom you don't know - sitting in the dark.
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Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.
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Perhaps art is a quest for the perfect, or even the imperfect. Reality always falls short on both sides.
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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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Making your life is ultimately an extraordinarily creative endeavor.
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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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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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Each person has a literature inside them.
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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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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.
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I think what I am is a convener I like to convene people around ideas.
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Identity is an assemblage of constellations.
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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.
Anna Deavere Smith