Patti Smith Quotes
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I was raised Jehovah's Witness. I was in Bible school at five or six years old, but I wouldn't say that we were a religious family.
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People came at me with all sorts of offers, wanting to make me into a hard-core Cher. I had no desire for any amount of money to be reformed for someone's vision, because in the end, that's what you got: your clay in someone else's hands.
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Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.
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I had a penchant myself for doing several things at once. I wanted to draw, write, speak.
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My daughter is one of my greatest inspirations. She's an environmentalist, she plays piano, she's raising money for the earthquake victims in Nepal. Every day she surprises me and teaches me something.
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I'm not a very analytical person.
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It was always my belief that rock and roll belonged in the hands of the people, not rock stars.
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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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Sure I destroyed my guitar at every concert, but it was okay, because I'd always get a shiny new one the very next day.
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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 like really hot coffee, not too strong.
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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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We have such a great depth of human history in all of the arts, whether it's opera or mathematics or painting or classical music or jazz. There's so many things to study, new books to read, and certainly always ways to transform old ideas and to come up with new ones.
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Robert Mapplethorpe, I met in 1967. He was a student at Pratt, though even as a student a fully formed artist. We went through many things in our life together. He became my loved one, then my best friend.
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'M Train' is as close to knowing what I'm like as anything. I don't know exactly what the book is about. All and nothing, I suppose.
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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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Artists, musicians, scientists - if you have any kind of visionary aptitude, it's often something that you don't have a choice in. You have to do it.
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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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My father was a dreamy fellow - he read Plato and Socrates and watched Phillies games.
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I've always looked the same. Since I was a child, I hated having to deal with my hair. I hated having to change my clothes. As a kid, I had a sailor shirt and the same old corduroy pants, and that's what I wanted to wear everyday.
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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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I know I'm a strong performer. I'm not an evolved musician.
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I get up, and if I feel out of sorts, I'll do some exercises, I'll feed my cat, then I go get my coffee, take a notebook, and write for a couple of hours.
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I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me.