Anna Deavere Smith Quotes
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You know, all kinds of people inspire me.
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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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I write plays about big, intense subjects.
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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.
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Each person has a literature inside them.
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To live your life well, and have respect for what came before or after - there's a strong respect for that in African culture.
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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.
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In my profession, I'm around a lot of people whose bodies are their instruments in one way or another.
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You know, interesting minds usually do hold more than one idea at a time.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.
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For me, first of all, I love people, I love ideas.
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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.
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I have never been in a violent movie or television show.
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A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.
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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.
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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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I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.
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We owe the government taxes. We owe our creditors interest. What do these powers owe us?
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I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.
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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 mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down.