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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
Sound
Words
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People
Text
Deeply
Study
More quotes by 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
Perhaps art is a quest for the perfect, or even the imperfect. Reality always falls short on both sides.
Anna Deavere Smith
Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning.
Anna Deavere Smith
That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.
Anna Deavere Smith
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.
Anna Deavere Smith
I have never been in a violent movie or television show.
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
Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you.
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
I am lucky: I have fantastic doctors and a fantastic dentist.
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
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
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
I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.
Anna Deavere Smith
I think what I am is a convener I like to convene people around ideas.
Anna Deavere Smith
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
If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.
Anna Deavere Smith
I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.
Anna Deavere Smith
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
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
