Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActress
Date of Birth18 September 1950
CountryUnited States of America
kids thinking people
I think as a kid I always liked to listen to people. I loved hearing stories.
ideas people firsts
For me, first of all, I love people, I love ideas.
reality artist people
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.
sick people want
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.
people study
I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.
art thinking people
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 lives.
leadership people mouths
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.
character people decision
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.
teacher children people
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.
race vocabulary people
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.
people body way
In my profession, I'm around a lot of people whose bodies are their instruments in one way or another.
giving people vision
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.'
people sound study
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.
people heartfelt stories
I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.