Quotes from Letters to a Young Artist

Anna Deavere Smith ·  240 pages

Rating: (505 votes)


“We who are in the arts are at the risk of being in a popularity contest rather than a profession. If that fact causes you despair . . . pick another profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities . . . We have to create our own standards of discipline.”
― Anna Deavere Smith, quote from Letters to a Young Artist


“You are an explorer. You understand that every time you go into the studio, you are after something that does not yet exist.”
― Anna Deavere Smith, quote from Letters to a Young Artist


“Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you. Go for that communion, that real communion with your soul, and the discipline of expressing that communion with others. That doesn't come from competition. That comes from being one with what you are doing.”
― Anna Deavere Smith, quote from Letters to a Young Artist


“Even jealousy is based on fantasies: a fantasy that someone else has what belongs to you.”
― Anna Deavere Smith, quote from Letters to a Young Artist


“My job in my work is not to acquire power; it's to question power.”
― Anna Deavere Smith, quote from Letters to a Young Artist



“Rhetoric is what shapes history, if not truth.”
― Anna Deavere Smith, quote from Letters to a Young Artist


“Art requires that you make something else exist that is a representation of what your feeling is, or your idea.”
― Anna Deavere Smith, quote from Letters to a Young Artist


About the author

Anna Deavere Smith
Born place: in Baltimore, MD, The United States
Born date September 18, 1950
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“He had been trying to suppress the feeling Stephan roused in him, but in the end, such things were never controllable—they rose up. Sometimes like the bursting of a mortar shell, sometimes like the inexorable green spike of a crocus pushing through snow and ice—but they rose up. Was he in love with Stephan? There was no question of that. He liked and respected the Hanoverian, but there was no madness in it, no yearning. Did he want Stephan? A soft warmth in his loins, as though his blood had begun somehow to simmer over a low flame, suggested that he did.”
― Diana Gabaldon, quote from Lord John And The Hand Of Devils


“I could not persuade her that a place does not merely exist, that it has to be invented in one's imagination.”
― Amitav Ghosh, quote from The Shadow Lines


“That is the physics that all fearless types discover at some point—an appropriate ratcheting up of self-belief and energy when facing negative or even impossible circumstances. Fearless”
― 50 Cent, quote from The 50th Law


“Brimstone: '...I shall smite thee with my fightful blasting wand so that thy teeth shall drop out, thy skin shall wrinkle, thou shalt have boils on thy bottom and be subject to night sweats, ringing in the ears, falling sickness, flaking dandruff, arthritis, lumbago, uncontrollable dribbling, deafness, runny nose, and ingrowing toenails. Amen.”
― Herbie Brennan, quote from Faerie Wars


“The Lassans were insatiably inquisitive, and the concept of privacy was almost unknown to them. A Please Do Not Disturb sign was often regarded as a personal challenge, which led to interesting complications...”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from The Songs Of Distant Earth


Interesting books

The Mysterious Mr. Quin
(8.7K)
The Mysterious Mr. Q...
by Agatha Christie
The Night Is for Hunting
(12.6K)
The Night Is for Hun...
by John Marsden
The Thing Around Your Neck
(17K)
The Thing Around You...
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
(16K)
The Boy Who Harnesse...
by William Kamkwamba
Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
(32.4K)
Going Clear: Sciento...
by Lawrence Wright
Woman on the Run
(2.5K)
Woman on the Run
by Lisa Marie Rice

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.