- Myself
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- Nov 07, 2020
Anna Deavere Smith Quotes
Most Famous Anna Deavere Smith Quotes of All Time!
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- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Nov 07, 2020
I mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down.
- Inside
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- Nov 07, 2020
Each person has a literature inside them.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
In my profession, I'm around a lot of people whose bodies are their instruments in one way or another.
- Different Kinds
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- Nov 07, 2020
You hang around actors, or dancers, the minute you sneeze, everybody has a remedy, and we're all on a million different kinds of diets, and different kinds of things that we do for exercise.
- First
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- Nov 07, 2020
I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.
- Government
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- Nov 07, 2020
We owe the government taxes. We owe our creditors interest. What do these powers owe us?
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
You know, all kinds of people inspire me.
- Leadership
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
For me, first of all, I love people, I love ideas.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.
- Freedom
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- Nov 07, 2020
I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.
- Art
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.
- Know
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- Nov 07, 2020
I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.
- Life
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- Nov 07, 2020
I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.
- Justice
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- Nov 07, 2020
Well, the terrible thing right now, and I don't know the statistics, but there's a growing concern in some communities about how rapidly people are sent from school to jail, how quickly they're put into the criminal justice system. And of course the rapidly growing number of brown people, both men and women, in prison. And this is terrible.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.
- Big
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- Nov 07, 2020
I write plays about big, intense subjects.
- Proud
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- Nov 07, 2020
Because of the generation in which I came into the world, there were expectations. Of course there were expectations. It was something having to do with being a respectable Negro woman who would make the people in Baltimore proud.
- American People
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- Nov 07, 2020
We would like doctors to listen, but the fact is, we better be ready to be able to talk to them. You're going to have to be an active participant in that conversation, so I'd say the American people are going to need ways of stepping up to the conversation.
- Money
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Imagination
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- Nov 07, 2020
I made a real specific decision when I came out of school and most artists were writing about home - if you were a woman, you were writing about being a woman - and I decided not to do that, write about what you know. That's not what I do. I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.
- Medication
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- Nov 07, 2020
Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.
- Chorus
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- Nov 07, 2020
Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.
- Brave
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Living
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Culture
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think a lot of L.A. is something like USC - this incredible white culture living in the midst of color, and no obvious reaction to it at all. I mean, they have guards at the gate at USC - guards at the gate of a major university! And the guards chase young black boys away - I've seen it, chasing 8-year-old boys.
- Truth
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Mirror
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- I Am
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- Nov 07, 2020
I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.
- Call
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- Nov 07, 2020
I call the language of political figures, pundits and administrators 'the haute couture of language.'
- Coffee
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think it's really important to give yourself a very big question that you're working on that you can come home to, even if you, you know, are going to have to go without a cup of coffee or even a meal, that that should nourish you.
- Heart
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- Nov 07, 2020
When you think about it, words can break your heart, or they can change your day.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way, actually. That was a very subversive activity, because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher, people loved it.
- Just
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- Nov 07, 2020
I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker; I just didn't have the resources to do that.
- Me
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Life
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- Nov 07, 2020
To live your life well, and have respect for what came before or after - there's a strong respect for that in African culture.
- Constellations
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- Nov 07, 2020
Identity is an assemblage of constellations.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
People in power have to be careful about what comes out of their mouth. They have to find exactly the right word that can't be attacked.
- Freedom
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it.
- Person
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- Nov 07, 2020
Probably the person who said the only color in Los Angeles is green was right.
- Moment
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- Nov 07, 2020
I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed.
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
Over time, my students have gotten richer and more educated.
- Heart
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- Nov 07, 2020
Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.
- Know
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Flash
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- Nov 07, 2020
There's not a lot of flash about me.
- Lot
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- Nov 07, 2020
A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020