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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
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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
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Text
Deeply
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Words
More quotes by 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
I happen to be a hopeaholic. I tend to look at problems as an opportunity to do some work.
Anna Deavere Smith
Confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition.
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
Making your life is ultimately an extraordinarily creative endeavor.
Anna Deavere Smith
I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.
Anna Deavere Smith
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.
Anna Deavere Smith
Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.
Anna Deavere Smith
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.
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
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
I think what I am is a convener I like to convene people around ideas.
Anna Deavere Smith
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.
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
In my profession, I'm around a lot of people whose bodies are their instruments in one way or another.
Anna Deavere Smith
Perhaps art is a quest for the perfect, or even the imperfect. Reality always falls short on both sides.
Anna Deavere Smith
I am lucky: I have fantastic doctors and a fantastic dentist.
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
When I was a kid, my grandfather said that if you say a word often enough, it becomes you. Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country.
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
