Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

For me, it's always just been about finding material that I think is creative and interesting and fun and something that can expand me and that I can hopefully do something with.

My influences change all the time; they have to remain current, because they're the things that capture your imagination and make you want to go into the studio.

Turns out Picasso's passion for uncertainty, mystery, and the thrill of life never ended.

In the place where I was a child, there were no artists and there was no art, so I really didn't know what that meant. I think I thought it meant that I would be in a situation different than the one that I was in.

Books that distribute things... with as daring a freedom as we use in dreams, put us on our feet again.

Literature led me to freedom, not the other way round.

As opposed to putting too much confidence in myself, or in an image or a scene or a set of brushes, I really want to allow the oil paint to perform, to show me the things that it wants to do, beyond my imagination.

There was a time during 'Gone Girl' that I'd come home, and I'd say, 'I get to be every part of being a woman in this role.' For me, I feel it much more as a springboard for the work I'm going to take on thereafter.

I feel like, Estonia, the sky is so low, and the people are much more close-minded than in America. So when I came to the U.S., I had a massive explosion of creativity and felt like I could do basically anything I want.

Art is feminine.

When I write music, I know a lot of artists like Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran tend to write from personal experience. I write from personal experience, of course, but I don't limit myself to that.

It's very easy I think when you're a creative person to wait for the right thing and to start getting self-conscious about how you are going to express what you do and what's special about you. I would say in general, a lot of times the answer is that you just dive into something and you find your own voice through that process.

I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.

All my songs are where I am.

These 'mistakes' occur in my books for a reason. I have an agenda: I'm secretly trying to inspire kids to create their own stories and comics, and I don't want them to feel stifled by 'perfectionism.'

I don't think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.

As a writer, you rely on whatever makes you up as a person, whether those things are twisted and nasty or otherwise.

When I work alone, it can be like dabbling with a canvas. Maybe you paint over bits, and it starts to form its own life and lead you off in a direction. It becomes an intuitive, subconscious process.

When I write a story, I have no idea what I'm doing. All I know is that I want to share something with my readers. The whole idea of writing is this place where you lose control, where you're irresponsible - it's a very liberating place.

So I don't think of myself as just a musician at all, I think of myself as an artist.

I do think all art is autobiographical, and I do think I know quite a bit about women. I don't know anything about men.

I just love writing. It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting. Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world.

It wasn't until I found my tribe of artists - people who were outspoken and not afraid to say what they thought, whether in a song or a dance or a piece of classical music - that I found a refuge.

I wanted to become an artist because it meant endless possibilities. Art was a way of reinventing myself.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.