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. — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share Image
I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment. — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
I think some of our most talented people are not going to pick the arts as a way that they're going to spend their… — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
I mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down. — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
The American idea is as promising, imaginative, and full of the unexpected as the land itself. The land represents freedom - the frontier, the… — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning. — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities. — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
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… — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
People realize that we're very good at sending people to war, but we're not good at taking care of them. And people are coming… — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing. — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
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,… — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you. — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
I made a real specific decision when I came out of school and most artists were writing about home - if you were a… — Anna Deavere Smith Copy Share
