Anna Deavere Smith Thinking Quotations

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 back from war now; years ago, they would have been killed, now they're wounded; and they're coming back alive and with post-traumatic stress. So, I think Americans are sensible enough to know we've got to figure out a way to take care of them.

I think as a kid I always liked to listen to people. I loved hearing stories.

I think we can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment they they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It's the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it's a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They're digging deep and projecting out at the same time.

I have a lot of optimism about new doctors because I think it's really clear that it's a lot of hard work and no guarantee of a lot of money.

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

I mean, I think that - as an actress, in particular, I'm basically a fool, and I see the world upside down.

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.

If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear.

I think it's really important to give yourself a very big question that you're working on that you can come home to

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.

What my work is, is my approach to it. It's the practice. And my work is about the effort that I make to get there. And I think if there's anything artistic, it's in that middle space.

I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.

I think what I am is a "convener"; I like to convene people around ideas.

When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country.