Anna Deavere Smith Quotes - Page 2

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.

If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.

I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.

I think we can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment they they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It's the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it's a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They're digging deep and projecting out at the same time.

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.

Use your time to bathe yourself in the gift. Move your hand across the canvas. Go to museums. Make this into an obsession.

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.

Many people are afraid to talk about race because it's so emotionally loaded. We don't have the vocabulary to talk about it. Every day, our vocabulary seems more and more inadequate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way, actually. That was a very subversive activity, because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher, people loved it.

I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.

Art simply can’t be stopped.

Identity is an assemblage of constellations.

You know, interesting minds usually do hold more than one idea at a time.

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

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

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.

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.

Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.

Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.

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.