Patti Smith Quotes
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I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf.
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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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I like gettin' old.
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I always enjoyed doing transgender songs.
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I always wrote. 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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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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Throughout my life, I happily deferred to family, companions, children.
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Well, I'm not one of those people who needs the limelight. If I'm performing, that's what I'm doing. If I'm not, I don't long for it. I don't need the approval of an audience, or applause.
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When I was a young girl, I'd love giving book reports.
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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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I like really hot coffee, not too strong.
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I work to Glenn Gould in the morning and go to sleep listening to Parsifal.
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All I've ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful.
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People wouldn't know this about me, but I adore ball gowns. I love their cut, their architecture and the thought of the hands of so many seamstresses working on them.
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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 loved being a rock and roll star, but it wasn't what I wanted in life.
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My mother and father had so many ups and downs and stayed with each other and helped each other. My mother took in ironing and she was a waitress. My father was working in the factory and he did people's tax returns.
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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 would rather write or record something great and have it overlooked than do mediocre work and have it be popular.
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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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I've lost lots of men in my life, besides my mother, which is a whole different loss.
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The issue of gender was never my biggest concern; my biggest concern was doing good work. When the feminist movement really got going, I wasn't an active part of it because I was more concerned with my own mental pursuits.
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I am not really certain how original my contribution to music is as I am obviously an amateur.
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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.