Patti Smith Quotes
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I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written 'Just Kids' had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.
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I'm always writing. And, I mean, I always counsel people when they call me a musician: I really do not have the skills of a musician. I really don't think like a musician, though I love music and I perform and sing.
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Bringing good news is imparting hope to one's fellow man. The idea of redemption is always good news, even if it means sacrifice or some difficult times.
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I didn't love Jim Morrison 'cause he was self-destructive. I loved him because of his work. Because of the way he merged poetry and rock-and-roll. Because he did something new.
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New York is a great city. There is no question of that. It's such a diverse city. I've walked down the city and heard four or five different languages simultaneously. I think that's beautiful.
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I am still a very optimistic person. I continue to do work with joy.
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To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.
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I've always thrived on the encouragement of others.
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One of my great goals when I first started taking photographs or showing them publicly is that people might want one for over their desk. That's my goal.
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Rock n' roll is dream soup, what's your brand?
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I come from a real working class background, and I didn't know anyone sophisticated - except I saw Edie Sedgewick once at the Art Museum in Philly. She had these black leotards and little black pumps and this big ermine cape and all these white dogs and black sunglasses and black eyes. She was classy!
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My dad got a job in a factory in Philadelphia, so I was raised in Germantown in a sort of a barracks for soldiers. They had housing for temporary housing. And then my parents saved money and bought a little house in South Jersey, built on a swamp.
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I work to Glenn Gould in the morning and go to sleep listening to Parsifal.
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No, my work does not reflect my sexual preferences, it reflects the fact that I feel total freedom as an artist.
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In the '60s, I used to love rock magazines; I'd cut out pictures of Bob Dylan and John Lennon.
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As an artist, I used to think that my responsibility was to do good work. But I had to learn from the '70s on that being a public figure presents another aspect of responsibility.
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The moment of creative impulse is what an artist gives you. You look at a Pollock, and it can't give you the tools to do a painting like that yourself, but in doing the work, Pollock shares with you the moment of creative impulse that drove him to do that work.
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For everything bad, there's a million really exciting things, whether it's someone puts out a really great book, there's a new movie, there's a new detective, the sky is unbelievably golden, or you have the best cup of coffee you ever had in your life.
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Pop music has always been about the mainstream and what appeals to the public.
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People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.
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People have the power to redeem the work of fools.
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I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I'm writing a poem or drawing, I'm not a female; I'm an artist.
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I want to be around a really long time. I want to be a thorn in the side of everything as long as possible.
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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.