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

Quotes to Explore
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I have dedicated my life to the 200m, I really love the 200m a lot.
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The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.
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Until I feel strong enough to pray sincerely and to act accordingly, I would rather not pray at all.
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Helping people boost themselves out of poverty is the best way to make a lasting positive difference in a person's life.
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The consumerist culture insists that swearing eternal loyalty to anything and anybody is imprudent, since in this world new glittering opportunities crop up daily.
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I'm never in my life going to do a record that's a tribute to myself. I don't need it.
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I want to have fun. It's a beautiful life. You learn, you win, you lose, but you get up.
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You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.
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You're trying to put yourself in that moment and trying to prepare yourself, to have a 'memory before the game. I don't know if you'd call it visualising or dreaming, but I've always done it, my whole life.
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Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
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I had the strong sense that I really wanted to be a SEAL, and I started thinking, 'Look, I don't ever want to look back and feel I have any regrets.'
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When I find someone who is worth it, I'll be nice and respect that person and put some time in.
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I had a strong desire to become an archer from the very first time I tried it. I forgot my other ambitions. I just wanted to compete in the Olympics.
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When you discover first love as a teenager, your whole life revolves around it and you open yourself up to it.
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I don't diet, I don't do fads, I've just decided to not eat carbs. So no more bread and pasta for the month. I can't live without chocolate, though. I've always got a bar in my handbag. It has to be 72%. Any less and it's too sweet, any more and it's inedible. Like I said, I'm very particular.
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Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
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As a writer, I wouldn't know how to not take things out of my life.
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What's really important in life? Sitting on a beach? Looking at television eight hours a day? I think we have to appreciate that we're alive for only a limited period of time, and we'll spend most of our lives working.
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To enter upon the marriage union is one of the most deeply important events of life. It cannot be too prayerfully treated. Our happiness, our usefulness, our living for God or for ourselves afterwards, are often most intimately connected with our choice. Therefore, in the most prayerful manner, this choice should be made.
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But another thing I know is this — we can’t steer ourselves out of this crisis by heading in the same, disastrous direction. We can’t change direction with a new driver who wants to follow the same old map. And that’s what this election is all about.
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Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.
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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.