Patti Smith Quotes
To be an artist — actually, to be a human being in these times — it’s all difficult. … What matters is to know what you want and pursue it.
Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.
Life isn't some vertical or horizontal line -- you have your own interior world, and it's not neat.
I imagined myself as Frida to Diego, both muse and maker. I dreamed of meeting an artist to love and support and work with side by side.
To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.
Polaroid by its nature makes you frugal. You walk around with maybe two packs of film in your pocket. You have 20 shots, so each shot is a world.
If we keep our little flame alive, our first feeling of enthusiasm of who we are, without the influence or intervention of others, we will prevail.
In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.
I have loved books all my life. There is nothing more beautiful in our material world than the book.
Life is an adventure of our own design intersected by fate and a series of lucky and unlucky accidents.
New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city.
People say hello to me. I mean, sometimes the sanitation truck goes by and says, hey Patti.
The people have the power to redeem the work of fools. Upon the meek the graces shower, it's decreed the people rule.
My father was always talking about God, and I idolized my father, so I'd spend hours trying to have mental telepathy with God.
I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords.
I don't think the average American understands what patriotism truthfully is. That's why when I attack our country or attack the government, it's sometimes looked at as unpatriotic. It's not.
When I was a teenager, I had trouble getting a boyfriend, so I imagined Arthur Rimbaud or Bob Dylan as my boyfriend.
I'm right here right now and I want now to be the Golden Age ...if only each generation would realize that the time for greatness is right now when they're alive ... the time to flower is now.
In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.
I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust.
Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet. Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech. (1976 Penthouse interview)
Put down your cell phones, put everything away, and feel your blood pulsing in you, feel your creative impulse, feel your own spirit, your heart, your mind. Feel the joy of being alive and free.
We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world.
Life is like a roller coaster. It's never going to be perfect - it is going to have perfect moments, and then rough spots, but it's all worth it.
I don't know about that. I'm not a very analytical person. I have various impulses. I've often quoted Walt Whitman's phrase "I contain multitudes." I understand that.
I felt alien my whole life but I didn't feel alien because of my gender. Other people made me aware of my gender.
When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel.
I never really wanted to be a singer - not with any longevity. But I always wanted to be a writer.
