I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way. Anna Deavere Smith More Quotes by Anna Deavere Smith More Quotes From Anna Deavere Smith If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear. Anna Deavere Smith acting jobs thinking Use your time to bathe yourself in the gift. Move your hand across the canvas. Go to museums. Make this into an obsession. Anna Deavere Smith museums hands moving I am not myself; I am the potential of myself. Anna Deavere Smith curiosity I think it's really important to give yourself a very big question that you're working on that you can come home to. Anna Deavere Smith home giving thinking I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination. Anna Deavere Smith development imagination home Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you. Anna Deavere Smith teach commitment art I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times. Anna Deavere Smith art-is art thinking 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 track kids world 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. Anna Deavere Smith study sound people Well, the terrible thing right now, and I don't know the statistics, but there's a growing concern in some communities about how rapidly people are sent from school to jail, how quickly they're put into the criminal justice system. And of course the rapidly growing number of brown people, both men and women, in prison. And this is terrible. Anna Deavere Smith women justice men people Not that many people, even contemporary writers, write about right now. Anna Deavere Smith right write now people I made a real specific decision when I came out of school and most artists were writing about home - if you were a woman, you were writing about being a woman - and I decided not to do that, write about what you know. That's not what I do. I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination. Anna Deavere Smith woman you imagination home To live your life well, and have respect for what came before or after - there's a strong respect for that in African culture. Anna Deavere Smith respect strong life culture We owe the government taxes. We owe our creditors interest. What do these powers owe us? Anna Deavere Smith owe us interest government
