Patti Smith Quotes
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We learned we wanted too much. We could only give from the perspective of who we were and what we had. Apart, we were able to see with even greater clarity that we didn’t want to be without each other.
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Life is like a roller coaster. It's never going to be perfect - it is going to have perfect moments, and then rough spots, but it's all worth it.
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You're not a rock 'n' roll person four hours a day or even when you're on stage. It's become the rhythm of your whole life.
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What is the soul? What color is it? I suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while I was dreaming and fail to return. I did my best not to fall asleep, to keep it inside of me where it belonged.
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It's not that I have compromised or anything, but it's always been important to me to take good care of myself and be a good example. I'm not much a role model in terms of hair care, though.
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I loved books; I read my childhood away. I was more interested in my interior world.
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Outside of society, if you're looking that's where you'll find me.
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As an artist, I never wanted to be fettered by gender nor recognized or defined as a female poet, musician or singer. They don't do that with men - nobody says Picasso, the male artist. Curators call me up and say, "We want your work to be in a show about women artists," and I'm like, why? For Christ's sake, do we have to attach a gender onto everything?
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Committing great work does not necessarily feed you.
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When I was working on the lyrics, I thought of all the lullabies we learn as children: "Away in the Manger," William Blake's lullabies. I realized that the key to lullabies is simplicity.
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I love my little overgrown yard. And my house is wonderful. It's everything that I need.
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My father's mother was from Liverpool and she had this very beautiful English china. I only wanted to drink my cocoa out of my grandmother's cup and saucer.
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A lullaby should be timeless because it's a timeless concept - the birth of the child.
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The film [Dream of Life], in the end, is life-affirming, and I think it's always useful for people to be reminded that no matter how rough things get, no matter what kind of twists and turns our lives can take, we can keep going, we can create something new.
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Light inspires me. I'm drawn to architecture, often graves, statues, trees - things usually that are quite still. I've been taking pictures continuously since 1995 until the end of Polaroid film. I'm taking very few pictures nowadays because I have very little film left, most of it expired.
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Why do people want to know exactly who I am? Am I a poet? Am I this or that? I've always made people wary. First they called me a rock poet. Then I was a poet that dabbled in rock. Then I was a rock person who dabbled in art.
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Life isn't some vertical or horizontal line -- you have your own interior world, and it's not neat.
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An artist wears his work in place of wounds.
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Obviously, I'm not homeless. I'm not an old alcoholic. I'm not jumping trains. I just like to live in a certain way.
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I was raised in rural south Jersey, and there was no culture there. There was a small library, and that was it. There was nothing else.
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An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.
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I don't wanna be equal with anybody. I wanna be above equal. I don't think most people are equal to me. I'd like to communicate with everybody; I'd like to do something universal, I'd like to have the hit record of the world. But that's not the same as being equal.
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The two things that constantly inspired me were books and travel.
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Since childhood, it was my dream to go where all the poets and artists had been. Rimbaud, Artaud, Brancusi, Camus, Picasso, Bresson, Goddard, Jeanne Moreau, Juliette Greco, everybody - Paris for me was a Mecca.
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We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world.
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I didn't begin my life in 1975 with 'Horses.' I recorded 'Horses' in 1975, but was drawing in Paris in 1969.
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In fact, I thought my calling was to be a painter.
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Some of us are born rebellious. Like Jean Genet or Arthur Rimbaud, I roam these mean streets like a villain, a vagabond, an outcast, scavenging for the scraps that may perchance plummet off humanity's dirty plates, though often sometimes taking a cab to a restaurant is more convenient.
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I was always trying to pick guys up. I'd ask guys out and stuff like that. I had no pride. I was the biggest lurch at dances, waiting for the ladies' choice. I'd lunge at my prey like a baby wolf.
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I didn't know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, but I was affected by both of their deaths because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce.
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