Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

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

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Quotes to Explore

• A long life in journalism convinced me many presidents ago that there should be a large air space between a journalist and the head of a state.

  

  Walter Lippmann
  • Life
  • Long
  • Space

• The first thing I tried to do in the months after losing my mother was to write a poem. I found myself turning to poetry in the way so many people do - to make sense of losses. And I wrote pretty bad poems about it. But it did feel that the poem was the only place that could hold this grief.

  

  Natasha Trethewey
  • People
  • Bad
  • Mother

• Always render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what your task may be.

  

  Og Mandino
  • May
  • Service
  • Better

• The kindest word to describe my performance in school was Sloth.

  

  Harrison Ford
  • School
  • Word
  • Performance

• I now believe that major labels can only work with people who care more about fame and money than the quality of the art they produce.

  

  Malcolm Wilson
  • People
  • Work
  • Believe

• The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet.

  

  Yehuda Amichai
  • Reason
  • Poet
  • Himself

• At the end of the day, you can't have a vision; you have to have a hope. This is where the miracle comes in.

  

  Dan Colen
  • Hope
  • Day
  • Vision

• No person, not even a congressman, is above the law.

  

  Dana Boente
  • Law
  • Person
  • Above

• Wise is he who enjoys the show offered by the world.

  

  Fernando Pessoa
  • World
  • Wise
  • Show

• I think the reason they cast me as the good girls is because they couldn't find any in Hollywood.

  

  Victoria Jackson
  • Good
  • Think
  • Reason

• If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.

  

  Saint Augustine
  • Believe
  • You
  • Yourself

• Whatever requires an undue amount of thought or trouble or involves a large expenditure of effort and causes our whole life to revolve, as it were, around solicitude for the flesh must be avoided by Christians.

  

  Saint Basil
  • Life
  • Effort
  • Thought

• I talk in subjects and verbs, and sort of wind around in concentric circles until I get far enough away from the beginning so that I can call it the end, and it ends.

  

  Garrison Keillor
  • Beginning
  • End
  • Wind

• As an actor, I think you should always disappear a little. I act in order to lose myself.

  

  Vincent Cassel
  • Think
  • Myself
  • Lose

• I have a knack for choosing the wrong people.

  

  Kangana Ranaut
  • People
  • Wrong
  • Choosing

• The strips about the military do seem to provoke moving and thoughtful responses. It's nice when the strip resonates, but more importantly, I need to know when I'm getting something wrong. The last thing I want to do is contribute to the suffering that wounded warriors already endure.

  

  Garry Trudeau
  • Want
  • Nice
  • Moving

• I have to entertain, because if I don't entertain you, you're not going to continue reading. But if I'm not out to enlighten, or change your mind about something, or change your behavior, then I really don't want to take the journey.

  

  Bebe Moore Campbell
  • Mind
  • Change
  • Reading

• I like to write in a shroud of secrecy because I have to keep finding ways to scare myself.

  

  M. Night Shyamalan
  • Myself
  • Finding
  • Secrecy

• Nobody can write a good 30-second commercial.

  

  Jerry Della Femina
  • Good

• Women don't want an overly feminine vehicle - they want to feel secure.

  

  Franz von Holzhausen
  • Women

• And I suggested to change very simple way to Olympic Games, in one competition, two different levels. Separate from, until sixteen, and after sixteen years old.

  

  Olga Korbut
  • Different
  • Change
  • Simple

• People have different relationships with power. I suppose a large portion of the 'Homeland' audience aligns with the U.S., sort of against the enemies. We certainly have the CIA viewpoint on the world - and it's their job.

  

  Martin Donovan
  • People
  • World
  • Different

• I remember from my earliest years people speaking, you know, in a certain kind of rhythm and telling stories and sharing experiences in a way that was different in Indian country than it was other places. And I was really struck by this and obviously very affected by it, because it's always come out in my songs.

  

  Robbie Robertson
  • Different
  • Remember
  • Obviously

• 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
  • Different
  • Exercise