Top 68 Quotes by Anna Deavere Smith

Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.

I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.

You know if we were to look back and how we were in 1955 living in Jim Crow, living in segregation, living in segregated schools, it's hard to believe that it was America, but it really was.

That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.

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.

You hang around actors, or dancers, the minute you sneeze, everybody has a remedy, and we're all on a million different kinds of diets, and different kinds of things that we do for exercise.

You know, real artists, we expose our flaws. We long for intimacy.

I write plays about big, intense subjects.