Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

It's hard to tell writers, especially in movies, that words are secondary. Behavior is important.

Never try to have the last word. You might get it.

Conversation: The slowest form of human communication.

There was a silence. Then Paul looked at Alex. 'She knows Chesterton.' 'She lives,' said Alex.

One says a lot in vain, refusing; The other mainly hears the "No."

Talk is cheap. Words are plentiful. Deeds are precious.

They chatter together like birds on Cypress Hill, but all they say is 'Live, live, live, live, live!' It's all they've learned, it's the only advice they can give.

Rhetoric is not important. Actions are.

I always play more than I talk, so the more I talk, the more I'll play.

How ironical that it is by means of speech that man can degrade himself below the level of dumb creation -- for a chatterbox is truly of a lower category than a dumb creature.

You can talk without saying a thing. I don't ever want to be that type of person.

conversation is like a dear little baby that is brought in to be handed round. You must rock it, nurse it, keep it on the move if you want it to keep smiling.

You can give words, but you can't take them. And when words are given, that is when they are shared. We remember what that was like. Words so real they were almost tangible. There are conversations you remember, for certain. But more than that, there is the sensation of conversation. You will remember that, even when the precise words begin to blur.

I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.

I'm not rapping, I'm conversing. It's just a conversation between me and you.

If the word is not dead when it reaches the hearer, he murders it at once by a contradiction, a stipulation, a condition, a digression, an interruption, and all the thousand tricks of conversation.

I have something to tell you." "How, you have something to tell me?" "You have understood me exactly." "Well, I am listening." "Listening? Then, you wish me to tell you?" "Yes, that is it. I am listening, and therefore I wish you to tell me." "Shall I tell you now?" "No.

The most important thing in my life, and the thing I try to focus on, is to try not to live a life of cruelty. That means trying to make sure I look people in the eye when I meet them. Sometimes you jump in a taxi, or maybe you only have two minutes with someone, and you never see them again. I try to always look them in the eye and have a real experience of what it is to communicate with someone.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

It's a strange thing, to be talked about instead of talked to.

I never said nothing..." "I know you never! I could hear you not saying anything! You've got the loudest silences I ever did hear from anyone who wasn't dead!

I think communication is so firsbern.

Communication is not saying something; communication is being heard.

I think actions speak louder than words. You can do all the hyping you want. It doesn't mean anything.

We need to change what we say and what we allow to be said in front of us.