Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

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Anna Deavere Smith

Profession : Actress

Birth : September 18, 1950

Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.

Anna Deavere Smith

I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.

Anna Deavere Smith

In my own life I'm frequently in predominantly white atmospheres.

Anna Deavere Smith

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.

Anna Deavere Smith

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.

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

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

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.

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 mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down.

Anna Deavere Smith

I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.

Anna Deavere Smith

Many people are afraid to talk about race because it's so emotionally loaded. We don't have the vocabulary to talk about it. Every day, our vocabulary seems more and more inadequate.

Anna Deavere Smith

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.

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

We owe the government taxes. We owe our creditors interest. What do these powers owe us?

Anna Deavere Smith

I think as a kid I always liked to listen to people. I loved hearing stories.

Anna Deavere Smith

Not that many people, even contemporary writers, write about right now.

Anna Deavere Smith

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.

Anna Deavere Smith

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.

Anna Deavere Smith

To live your life well, and have respect for what came before or after - there's a strong respect for that in African culture.

Anna Deavere Smith