Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

Each person has a literature inside them.

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.

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.

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.

You are an explorer. You understand that every time you go into the studio, you are after something that does not yet exist.

Even jealousy is based on fantasies: a fantasy that someone else has what belongs to you.