Anna Deavere Smith

Racism has been for everyone like a horrible, tragic car crash, and we've all been heavily sedated from it. If we don't come into consciousness of this tragedy, there's going to be a violent awakening we don't want. The question is, can we wake up?

car


Anna Deavere Smith

Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.

fear


Anna Deavere Smith

I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.

freedom


Anna Deavere Smith

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.

freedom


Anna Deavere Smith

Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.

friendship


Anna Deavere Smith

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.

future


Anna Deavere Smith

I think it's really important to give yourself a very big question that you're working on that you can come home to, even if you, you know, are going to have to go without a cup of coffee or even a meal, that that should nourish you.

home


Anna Deavere Smith

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.

home


Anna Deavere Smith

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.

imagination


Anna Deavere Smith

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.

leadership


Anna Deavere Smith

Learning is a tunnel experience that makes us think more broadly.

learning


Anna Deavere Smith

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

movies


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