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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.
Patti Smith -
I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf.
Patti Smith
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Maybe I'll be 48 and die in the gutter in Paris.
Patti Smith -
My style says, 'Look at me, don't look at me.'
Patti Smith -
I loved being a rock and roll star, but it wasn't what I wanted in life.
Patti Smith -
It's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing. I'm not a musician. I never thought of performing in a rock n' roll band. I was just drawn in. It was like being called to duty - I was called to duty, and I did my duty as best as I could.
Patti Smith -
Look around you, all around youRiding on a copper waveDo you like the world around you?Are you ready to behave?
Patti Smith -
For Christmas every year, my mother used to give me those cheap little diaries that would tell your horoscope and provide a little blank slot for each day.
Patti Smith
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I know what that tastes like, to be a rock-and-roll star - to have a limousine, to have girls screaming when they see you, girls trying to cut my hair, get a piece of me. But I don't walk around with a concept of myself as a rock-and-roll star, and certainly not as a musician, because I really can't play anything, except primitively.
Patti Smith -
My siblings were a bit younger than me, and I was always entertaining them and making up stories.
Patti Smith -
If I feel any marginalisation, it's because the things that concern me aren't so important to other people.
Patti Smith -
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.
Patti Smith -
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.
Patti Smith -
Besides me wanting to be an artist, I wanted to be a movie star.
Patti Smith
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I knew William Burroughs really well, and I was always star struck being around him. I adored him.
Patti Smith -
We never threw a record together. Each record was done really seriously, as if our life depended on it.
Patti Smith -
I like revisiting my early work, and people like to hear it. I don't make people suffer through any experimentation or new material. When I go see an artist, I want to hear the songs that drew me to them, so I do the same.
Patti Smith -
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.
Patti Smith -
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.
Patti Smith -
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.
Patti Smith
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I am not really certain how original my contribution to music is as I am obviously an amateur.
Patti Smith -
I know I'm a strong performer. I'm not an evolved musician.
Patti Smith -
I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.
Patti Smith -
Artists are traditionally resistant to labels.
Patti Smith