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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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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I feel a kinship with anyone who feels that their road, their life or who they really are is not good enough. I really relate to that.
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I always say, 'When the Olympics are happening, you shouldn't be in any other place in the planet - you should be here.'
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A dancer's life is as peripatetic and unstable as that of an actor's. You're freelancing yourself all the time, and a dancer's lifespan is even shorter than an actor's: once they turn 30 or 35, they have to stop.
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Pregnancy and motherhood are the most beautiful and significantly life-altering events that I have ever experienced.
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Human beings are fascinating with religion and stories about not dying. Or dying and being brought back to life. I think it's just part of our make up.
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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.