If I do three interviews in a day, I can be exhausted, because the process of hearing everyone requires that I empty out myself. While I’m listening, my own judgments and prejudices certainly come up. But I know I won’t get anything unless I get those things out of the way. Anna Deavere Smith Read Quote
If you think about what acting is supposed to be, my job is to disappear. Anna Deavere Smith Read Quote
Many people are afraid to talk about race because it’s so emotionally loaded. We don’t have the vocabulary to talk about it. Every day, our vocabulary seems more and more inadequate. Anna Deavere Smith Read Quote
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. Anna Deavere Smith Read Quote
Because of the generation in which I came into the world, there were expectations. Of course there were expectations. It was something having to do with being a respectable Negro woman who would make the people in Baltimore proud. Anna Deavere Smith Read Quote