Anna Deavere Smith Quotes

A time comes when you need to stop waiting for the man you want to become and start being the man you want to be.

We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day.

Making the absolute best of ourselves is not an easy task. It is a pleasurable pursuit...but it requires patience, persistence, and perseverance.

Character cannot be made except by a steady, long-continued process.

You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be.

You're always becoming; you've never arrived. And I use that day by day just for me to work hard each and every day, and know that no matter how good I worked out today, no matter how good I thought I was today, I can always get better and always be a better person.

Before a person can achieve the kind of life he wants, he must think, act, walk, talk and conduct himself in all of his affairs as would the person he wishes to become.

Work hard at your job and you can make a living. Work hard on yourself and you can make a fortune.

I happen to think we’ve set our ideal on the wrong objects; I happen to think that the greatest ideal man can set before himself is self-perfection.

As you practice things, you get better. I mean I've worked very hard on changing my life and taking what is good about it and trying to jettison the things I think were not good about it. I think the key word is "discipline," focus. I'm always working at it, but I'm not always successful.

You cannot be the person they know and the great, glorious person you want to become. Not at the same time.

You have sole custody of your life. Who you are today is not who you have to be tomorrow. Embrace the possibility of transformation.

It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development.

It is not enough to do, one must also become. I wish to be wiser, stronger, better. This--" I held out my hands "--this thing that is me is incomplete. It is only the raw material with which I have to work. I want to make it better than I received it.

It’s not what you do – it’s what you are becoming.

A lot of can't deal with life because they lack the patience to become who they want to be.... Everything happens by process. If you don't go through the process to get it, you don't have the power to keep it.

The ordinary focus on what they're getting. The extraordinary think about who they're becoming.

It is the eternal, inescapable law that growth comes only from work and preparation, whether the growth be material, mental, or spiritual. Work has no substitute.

See what a person is doing every day, day after day, and you'll know who that person is and what he or she is becoming.

I set goals, take control, drink out my own bottle, I make mistakes but learn from every one, And when it's said and done, I bet this brother be a better one, If I upset you don't stress, Never forget, that God isn't finished with me yet

Everything can be learned, including, to a very large extent, to be what you are not. You can learn to be pretty if you are plain, charming if you are dull, thin if you are fat, youthful if you are aging, how to write though you are inarticulate, how to make money though you are not good with figures.

You can have more, be more and do more because you can change the person you are.

Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.

Every time we choose action over ease or labor over rest, we develop an increasing level of self-worth, self-respect and self-confidence. In the final analysis, it is how we feel about ourselves that provides the greatest reward from any activity. It is not what we get that makes us valuable, it is what we become in the process of doing that brings value into our lives. It is activity that converts human dreams into human reality, and that conversion from idea into actuality gives us a personal value that can come from no other source.

All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete, a scientist, an artist, or an entrepreneur. In service of their goals, they lay down time, energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self.