Patti Smith Quotes
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When I stopped performing for 16 years and lived in Michigan and was married and raising my children, I wrote about four or five books. I haven't published them. I just haven't gotten around to it for several reasons.
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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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Pop music has always been about the mainstream and what appeals to the public.
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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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Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.
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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 personally am not interested in people trying to pigeonhole me.
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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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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 liked being on stage; I just didn't like the theatrical aspect of being in front of people.
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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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Everyone has a creative impulse, and has the right to create, and should.
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I never thought I was gonna live to 30.
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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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People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.
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I work to Glenn Gould in the morning and go to sleep listening to Parsifal.
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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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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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I know I'm a strong performer. I'm not an evolved musician.
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My mom loved rock n' roll. My father hated it. We couldn't play it when he was around. He liked classical music and Duke Ellington.
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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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There are so many great 19th-century photographers, and it's really my favorite period, but the amateurs did such beautiful work.
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I would rather write or record something great and have it overlooked than do mediocre work and have it be popular.
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I always enjoyed doing transgender songs.