Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

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

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

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

People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it.

I am not myself; I am the potential of myself.

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

I have a lot of optimism about new doctors because I think it's really clear that it's a lot of hard work and no guarantee of a lot of money.

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.

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.

Each person has a literature inside them.

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.

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.

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.

Making your life is ultimately an extraordinarily creative endeavor.

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.

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.

A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.

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.

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 never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.

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