J. L. B. Smith Quotes

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.

Obviously, I'm not homeless. I'm not an old alcoholic. I'm not jumping trains. I just like to live in a certain way.

My public life was so demanding that I wasn't doing the things that I deemed the most important.

All of my role models, whether it was the disciples, or John the Baptist or Arthur Rimbaud, slept under the stars.

I wasn't a stranger to hard times. I used to read the Bible - well, I still do, but when I was young I read the Bible quite a bit.

I got my style from a lot of different people, even my style of reading, even Johnny Carson inspired me.

My mission is to communicate, to wake people up, just to give them my energy and accept theirs.

I wish I could just project everything on the paper.

Both of them were ahead of their time, but they didn't live long enough to see the time they were ahead of.

I want to keep my life as unfettered as possible. So maybe I'll just pretend to get rare books from my catalogue, and not really get them.

The thing I've always liked about performing is that I decide what I want to wear, whether I want to comb my hair.

I reflected on the fact that no matter how good I aspired to be, I was never going to achieve perfection

I knew if I lived long enough I would be poet laureate of something.

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.

You're not a rock 'n' roll person four hours a day or even when you're on stage. It's become the rhythm of your whole life.

All the traumas I went through separating art from writing don't exist anymore. That's why I love being in rock 'n' roll. It's a whole life thing.

I'd try to write my poems in a certain rhythm. I had my rock 'n' roll stuff for performing and my denser stuff for writing.

I hated the soup and felt little for the can.

I didn't write about aspects of my public life because that's a small part of my life.

I've always considered myself a writer.

Then I read Little Women, and of course, like a lot of really young girls, I was very taken with Jo - Jo being the writer and the misfit.

What a model of an artist was for me was an artist who worked. Picasso was the ultimate model, because the work ethic he had.

Finally, by the sea, where God is everywhere, I gradually calmed.

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.

I was so used to doing art that my fingers were like albino spiders. So it was just natural for me to go to a typewriter and write poetry.

People by themselves can be pretty stupid. People working together can be very powerful.

I see money as a reflection of how much impact you're having on the world. I see money as a metaphor in a way.

Nobody gives twenty-five million dollars to anybody if they're not getting twenty-five million worth out of it. Forget it. It just doesn't happen.

I was always busy doing something, being an only child.

There were neighbors that I played with and did all the things that children do. I did mow the lawn. I did help with various things that needed to be done to occupy my time.

I was engaged in all the required courses of math and geometry, but the area that I blossomed in was the art program.

At home, the radio was a big source and the classic radio programs we would listen to like Amos and Andy and whatever other ones there were.

It [piano lessons] wasn't a priority, but it was an interest and through that I became acquainted with classical music, which was a main interest at the time.

There was a certain amount of discipline, I think; my parents wanted to be sure that I was not just sitting around doing nothing.

Fortunately, I had cousins who lived in Buffalo and would often go to visit them, which I loved to do because I liked Buffalo as it was a big city. Even today, the bigger the city, the better.

Even today, the bigger the city, the better. That's why I live in New York.

Charles Burchfield was exceptional. As such an accomplished artist, he had limited previous association with academia and teaching.

I know that I was conscious of all the aspects of the war, having had cousins who were in the army, who would send me notes and memorabilia. I began to collect things that they would send me.

Upon graduation, in the yearbook I was voted "Most likely to succeed." which I know was credited to my artistic achievements.

Being born in '31 was during the Depression and in my earlier youth World War II took place - so it was not the best of times, and yet I don't recall ever having experiences that were a burden.

I was there [in school] the full time with one teacher, and the student body was never more than 10 or 12 students of all ages.

I developed friends in the community that were in walking distance or a bicycle ride away, so that I socialized and did a lot of things that children do in their early years.

Going back to the elementary school days, I was always drawing. I entered a Victory poster competition and won the top award that recognized my artistic instincts.

I was painting furniture, learning to stencil, and explore all kinds of traditional techniques of decoration. I learned from books that I picked up.

At school there were some programs in music. I did take piano lessons, and we had a piano at home. I got very interested in that.

The pastors and ministry leaders came away energized to have voter registration drives at their churches and motivated to encourage their congregations to "vote their values."

Well, I think that in every character there are little bits and pieces of yourself.

As a dancer, one of my many teachers along the way made the comment that who I was onstage and who I was off were two totally different people.

In my heart, my first desire was to be a dancer. I always wanted to dance and I danced from the time I was 7 till I was well into my 30s.

I have always been interested in giving back, and I wouldn't want to know a life without giving.