Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

What you are will show, ultimately. Start now, every day, becoming, in your actions, your regular actions, what you would like to become in the bigger scheme of things.

Artists are the people that no matter what, pick up the pen, pick up a paintbrush. They take the time to translate what is happening to create something that resonates deeply with the rest of the people that are caught in the middle of their own reality.

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.

Identity is an assemblage of constellations.

Confidence is a static state. Determination is active. Determination allows for doubt and for humility - both of which are critical in the world today. There is so much that we don’t know, and so much that we know we don’t know. To be overly confident or without doubt seems silly to me. Determination, on the other hand, is a commitment to win, a commitment to fight the good fight.

You can't teach talent. You can't teach inspiration. You can teach people critical facilities. You can give them techniques. You can teach discipline. And you can teach them about the business.

We spend so much time bantering about the words when the real open conversations might very well be our actions. I worry about our rhetoric.

Each person has a literature inside them.

Hope is when you look out the window and you go, 'It doesn't look good at all, but I'm going to go beyond what I see to give people visions of what could be.'

Racism has been for everyone like a horrible, tragic car crash, and we've all been heavily sedated from it. If we don't come into consciousness of this tragedy, there's going to be a violent awakening we don't want. The question is, can we wake up?

Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.

Be more than ready. Be present in your discipline. Remember your gift. Be grateful for your gift and treat it like a gift. Cherish it, take care of it, and pass it on.

My main concern is theater, and theater does not reflect or mirror society. It has been stingy and selfish, and it has to do better.

We who are in the arts are at the risk of being in a popularity contest rather than a profession. If that fact causes you despair . . . pick another profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities . . . We have to create our own standards of discipline.

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.

You've heard that old expression from Shakespeare, 'Just speak the speech'? The words themselves will take you to the reality of the character. And so this led me to interview people.

You know if we were to look back and how we were in 1955 living in Jim Crow, living in segregation, living in segregated schools, it's hard to believe that it was America, but it really was.

They say that art should stand the test of time. Life lasts a limited amount of time. Mountains and trees and earth will outlive human beings, but we don't know if they will be here always. Art does outlast the life span of its maker. Art should communicate to an increasing circle of strangers-people who do not know the artist, but come to know the work, and through the work, come to know something about the humanity of the artist that rings with their own humanity.

Each person has a literature inside them. But when people lose language, when they have to experiment with putting their thoughts together on the spot-that's what I love most. That's where character lives.

The individuals inside are frequently fighting that their individual voices be heard, while the walls of the place, which are the mask, and the perception, are reluctant to give over to the voices of the individuals. Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance. Part of the identity of a place is the tension between those in the margins, and those in the center, and they all live behind the walls which wear the tradition.

Perhaps art is a quest for the perfect, or even the imperfect. Reality always falls short on both sides.

That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.

You are an explorer. You understand that every time you go into the studio, you are after something that does not yet exist.

My work is about giving voice to the unheard, and reiterating the voice of the heard in such a way that you question, or re-examine, what is the truth.

When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country.

I happen to be a hopeaholic. I tend to look at problems as an opportunity to do some work.

I think what I am is a "convener"; I like to convene people around ideas.

Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again. When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country. It doesn't matter how educated they are. By living in the world and living their experiences, they bring extraordinary truths. I try to do those truths justice.

Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities.

Then everyone leaves, and you are left, each night, to your own devices with a crowd of interesting people - most of whom you don't know - sitting in the dark.

I am lucky: I have fantastic doctors and a fantastic dentist.

Confidence is the mark of a hopeful disposition.

Self-esteem does not come from surrounding yourself with people and things that seem to increase your value. Real self-esteem is an integration of an inner-value with things in the world around you.

Even jealousy is based on fantasies: a fantasy that someone else has what belongs to you.

Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.

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.

I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker; I just didn't have the resources to do that.

I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.

Probably the person who said the only color in Los Angeles is green was right.

You know, real artists, we expose our flaws. We long for intimacy.

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.

Learning is a tunnel experience that makes us think more broadly.

I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.

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.

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.

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

A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.

Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning.

The American idea is as promising, imaginative, and full of the unexpected as the land itself. The land represents freedom - the frontier, the ability to make a new future with your own bare hands.

I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.