Patti Smith Quotes
- All Quotes
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Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.
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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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I try not to give too much advice, really, because people have to do their things their way. I got lots of advice when I was young, and I ignored most of it - the good and the bad.
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I'm not really a musician. I'm a performer, and I love rock n' roll. I've embraced rock n' roll because it encompasses all the things I'm interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism - all of these things can be found in rock n' roll.
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Let's just say that I think any person who aspires, presumes, or feels the calling to be an artist has a built-in sense of duty.
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As I go through life, I can see why my mother directed me that way, or why my father counseled me in that way. But some things you're open to when you're young, and some things you need to find out for yourself. I think that that's pretty universal.
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I don't believe any artist who says, 'I had to do that because DJs will tell me I can't play that music. I will lose my job.' Well, lose the job and create a new job. If your label won't let you have the cover you want or sing the songs you want, then leave!
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Sometimes you're doing really well, then, after three or four years, everything inexplicably crashes like a house of cards and you have to rebuild it. It's not like you get to a point where you're all right for the rest of your life.
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Even as a child, I knew what I didn't want. I didn't want to wear red lipstick.
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I was quite an insomniac. I rarely slept as a child. Having God to talk to at night was nice.
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I was a lower middle-class kid. My family had no money. There was no room in our small house where there were already four kids, including myself, living.
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My mom loved rock 'n roll. My father hated it. We couldn't play it when he was around.
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If I'm taking a picture of Brancusi's grave, I know that there's something of him, of his mortal remains, beneath my feet, and there's something beautiful about that.
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What a model of an artist was for me was an artist who worked. Picasso was the ultimate model, because the work ethic he had.
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I had a really happy childhood - my siblings were great, my mother was very fanciful, and I loved to read. But there was always financial strife.
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When I'm writing a book, I don't have any responsibility to anyone. I'm solitary. I'm writing on my own. I write by hand. And I write every day. I mean, it's part of my daily discipline.
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I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.
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I get irritated with the world. I get irritated with politicians. I get very irritated with governments and with corporations, but in terms of imagination - my imagination is always fertile. I'm either thinking of my own things or constantly engaged by the things that other people do.
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I'd just make sure with anything I say I know what I'm talking about.
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In fact, I thought my calling was to be a painter.
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I was born in 1946, so I was born on the tail end of when everything was deemed important. You made things to last. If you came from a poor family, there was only one can opener.
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I think we have a creative impulse where suffering can magnify our work, but so can joy. You can be in love and write the greatest love song ever. Sometimes I think too much suffering makes it difficult to do one's work.
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My mother answers all my fan mail.
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I have a lot of energy, and I like to work.