I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and self-expression.
In this quote, Anna Deavere Smith articulates her identity as a lifelong learner, highlighting the necessity of understanding and mastering the art of expression. She positions herself as a student, suggesting that true artistry involves a dedication to growth, exploration, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge in how we communicate and connect with others.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of art education, one might quote Anna Deavere Smith to emphasize the role of ongoing learning in expression.
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.
I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed.
Artists are the people that no matter what, pick up the pen, pick up a paintbrush. They take the time to translate what is happening to create something that resonates deeply with the rest of the people that are caught in the middle of their own reality.
Even jealousy is based on fantasies: a fantasy that someone else has what belongs to you.
Each person has a literature inside them.
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.
If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you're going to the bank to borrow money.
I just wanted a song to sing, and there came a point where I couldn't sing anything...nobo dy else was writing what I wanted to sing. I couldn't find it anywhere. If I could I probably would never have started writing.
Drag is literally so ancient that it predates modern understanding of gender, of transness, of queerness. Drag predates modern ideas of gender, of theater at all. Drag predates the word 'drag' itself.
All movies assault the viewer in one way or another.
Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.
Every story has already been told. Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.
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