Patti Smith Quotes
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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.
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Besides me wanting to be an artist, I wanted to be a movie star.
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Artists are traditionally resistant to labels.
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Nothing is a hobby - each discipline is its own world with its own high standards. Of course, every artist has 'minor works' that they do, but I don't think I have any 'minor disciplines.'
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I haven't had the most thrilling lifestyle. I was a pretty good dresser, but I would have a pretty boring 'Behind the Music.'
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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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I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.
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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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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 was so unhealthy as a child, and at least three or four times my parents were told to get ready, that I would not make it.
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C'mon, I mean who didn't listen to 'The Who' in the 60s?
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It was no hardship to me to spend long hours reading and writing.
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When I was young, I was offered my first recording contract in 1971 and was offered quite a bit of money if I would change my character and be a '70s version of Cher.
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What I say should always be prefaced with this: I'm not really politically articulate. I just try to be like Thomas Paine: what is common sense? So when I say these things to you, I am speaking from a humanist point of view. I just look around and see what's wrong.
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Life is filled with holesJohnny's laying there in his sperm coffinThe angel looks down at him and says 'Oh, pretty boyCan't you show me nothing but surrender?
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As a citizen, hopefully I'm humanist. As an artist, I'm free.
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Nothing will stifle your human evolution more than fame and fortune.
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Mohammed personally mapped out seven heavens. If he got to seven, you know there's more.
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The new artists coming through were very materialistic and Hollywood, not so engaged in communication.
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I learned a lot from Arthur Rimbaud. People talk about how he wanted to be a seer and do that through the derangement of the senses. What they forget was that he also advocated, sternly and austerely, that one must be able to go through all that - and then articulate it.
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I don't stay in one discipline because it's more lucrative than another. In fact, the most successful thing I ever did was 'Just Kids,' for which I had absolutely no expectations.
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Music television is all about the media-oriented version of what it is to be a rock star; it's not about what Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix were about - which included great images, sure, but they had spiritual and political and revolutionary content, too.
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When I was younger, I felt it was my duty to wake people up. I thought poetry was asleep. I thought rock 'n' roll was asleep.
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I'm a worker. I do the work to communicate, and I want people to embrace it, and when they do I'm happy.