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

More quotes by Anna Deavere Smith

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Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you.
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I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.
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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.
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If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.
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My job in my work is not to acquire power it's to question power.
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I happen to be a hopeaholic. I tend to look at problems as an opportunity to do some work.
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Confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition.
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Identity is an assemblage of constellations.
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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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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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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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You know, interesting minds usually do hold more than one idea at a time.
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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.
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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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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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I am lucky: I have fantastic doctors and a fantastic dentist.
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I think as a kid I always liked to listen to people. I loved hearing stories.
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