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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
Right
Leadership
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Helping
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Next
Think
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Folks
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Across
More quotes by Anna Deavere Smith
I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.
Anna Deavere Smith
I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.
Anna Deavere Smith
Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.
Anna Deavere Smith
I am not myself I am the potential of myself.
Anna Deavere Smith
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
Self-esteem does not come from surrounding yourself with people and things that seem to increase your value. Real self-esteem is an integration of an inner-value with things in the world around you.
Anna Deavere Smith
Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you.
Anna Deavere Smith
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
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
Racism has been for everyone like a horrible, tragic car crash, and we've all been heavily sedated from it. If we don't come into consciousness of this tragedy, there's going to be a violent awakening we don't want. The question is, can we wake up?
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
Hope is when you look out the window and you go, 'It doesn't look good at all, but I'm going to go beyond what I see to give people visions of what could be.'
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
I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.
Anna Deavere Smith
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
What my work is, is my approach to it. It's the practice. And my work is about the effort that I make to get there. And I think if there's anything artistic, it's in that middle space.
Anna Deavere Smith
Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.
Anna Deavere Smith
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.
Anna Deavere Smith
If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.
Anna Deavere Smith
I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.
Anna Deavere Smith