Quotes by 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.

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.

Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.

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

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.

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?