Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

I did movie star impressions as a kid in high school. Somehow they just got out of hand.

I found that I could make people laugh doing people like Shirley Bassey. Fortunately it worked.

My way of fitting in was through jokes and making people laugh.

I always performed as a kid to make my family laugh and was more concerned with making kids at school laugh than I was about the lessons.

I used to dress up and impersonate our next-door neighbor, Miss Cox. She wore rubber boots, a wool hat, and her nose always dripped.

People go into cartooning because they're shy and they're angry. That's when you're sitting in the back of a classroom drawing the teacher.

I enjoyed entertaining people since I was a little girl. There was nothing better than making people laugh. That, and the need to express myself in a safe environment.

As a kid, I think people would have described me more as a goofball, or being energetic. But I always loved parodies; I loved spoofing things.

A mimicry artiste should be spontaneous and he should be able to crack jokes on the spot.

Growing up the way that I did - I grew up with a lot of cousins - you just have this imagination, and I love going and telling different stories. I'm a clown.

What did you learn in school that you still use today? Go ahead teachers, tell me. What? Fear, conformity, don't question authority.

I wasn't a class clown, I just found at an early age that I was able to make people laugh. So I mostly wrote funny stuff instead of writing what I was supposed to be writing.

I've always tried to come up with funny dancing since I was young, to attract girls' attention for one thing. It's got to be funny. I can't pull it off with serious dances. That's not me.

I learned to fall down early in life - I was, like, six - because I realized it was a way to make girls laugh.

I think there's a part, just a part of comedians, that is still childlike.

You can't make everybody laugh. You gotta just do what you think is funny. Just be obstreperous to everybody.

I loved practical jokes. I loved being goofy on the playground, and I loved doing silly cartoons, but I was not this subversive little delinquent. I am an Eagle Scout, after all.

I think I have always tried to connect my comedy to my art.

Comedy is the ultimate truth. Jazz is hitting the notes that that no one else would hit, and comedy is saying words that no one else would say.

I couldn't fight, and I wasn't particularly interested in the academic. So I started doing satiric bits in the school bathroom. Guys would cut class to come and see me.

I think it's funny when people, they try to imitate the 'Chandelier' video. I think it's hilarious.

In fifth grade, we had to write a story and read it in front of the class. When I read mine out, the class were just belly laughing. And I remember being like, 'This is the coolest!' So I want to dedicate my life to trying to make people laugh. I can't imagine doing anything else.

I was a precocious only child, and then I went through a fat, awkward stage for several years, so I learned to fall back on my humor and personality when I was growing up. It's how you survive, so I think it was more of a natural progression for me, developing into comedy.

I was a bit of a goofball. I was always silly. I think that lends itself to being an actor.

When I was a child, I was referred to as the Danny Kaye of the family, because I was always impersonating and mimicking people. I was a song and dance man.