Quotes from Letters to a Young Artist

“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

Popular quotes

“I felt a crack in my defenses—a weak place where truth knifed and twisted and pried for an opening”
― Julianne Donaldson, quote from Blackmoore

“The girl was alluring. Like wildfire, or a summer storm swept off the Gulf of Oro.”
― Sarah J. Maas, quote from The Assassin and the Healer

“And they both sat there, grown up, yet children at heart; and it was summer, - warm, beautiful summer.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, quote from The Snow Queen

“The relentless pull of love is a thousand times harder to fight than the tides. If you’re lucky, you’ll make it out before you drown. If you’re even luckier, you’re pulled under just long enough to wash away the sorrow. If you’re really lucky, like me, you resurface just in time to find the one you love floating right beside you.”
― Cassia Leo, quote from Relentless

“Am auzit sau am citit că filoanele de aur au uneori la suprafață un înveliș de cuarț, din care e greu să extragi metalul. Presupun că și inima ta are un asemenea înveliș; înăuntru se află metalul prețios, dar afurisita asta de coajă nu s-a topit de tot...”
― Henryk Sienkiewicz, quote from Without Dogma

Interesting books

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.