Top 575 Quotes & Sayings by Patti Smith - Page 10

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 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.

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

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

I wasn't writing, I wasn't drawing, and personality-wise, I was just completely arrogant. I'm not trying to be overly apologetic for my behavior - I wasn't evil. The lifestyle I had was one that lent itself to becoming more and more self-involved.

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

When I perform, I always opt for communication with God, and in pursuit of communicating with God, you can enter some very dangerous territory. I also have come to realize that total communication with God is physical death.

If the postman is saying hello to you, then I feel like, wow, thats something special.

The bible is very resonant. It has everything, creation, betrayal, lust, poetry, prophecy, sacrifice. All great things are in the bible and all great writers have drawn from it and more than people realise, whether Shakespeare, Herman Melville or Bob Dylan. Of course there are stories that are still relevant and inspiring; lessons that need to be taught over and over again. And they give people hope.

I hate to be enclosed. I don't like bathroom doors - I don't shut them. In fact, in my house, I have no doors.

I'm from South Jersey: The idea of eating a roll with olive oil and anchovies or some kind of sardine and drinking mint tea definitely comes from reading Paul Bowles.

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.

By the time I was 10 or 11, I was completely demoralized. I thought, "I'm done. I'm never going to be a missionary," because my indiscretion column, whether it was little lies or stealing a Chunky bar, kept me from sainthood.

I'd never had people drive me around, and then all of a sudden, if a car didn't come, I'd say, "Where's my car?"

Light inspires me. I'm drawn to architecture, often graves, statues, trees - things usually that are quite still. I've been taking pictures continuously since 1995 until the end of Polaroid film. I'm taking very few pictures nowadays because I have very little film left, most of it expired.

My introduction to photography and a lot of how I developed aesthetically was through '50s and early-'60s fashion magazines like Harper's Bazaar and Vogue.

I always hesitate when people call me a musician.I have had no musical training. I can't play anything. I really think of myself as a performer. It's always been writing for me. I evolved with my band in rock 'n' roll through poetry, not through music.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I always wear the same thing onstage.

I hated the soup and felt little for the can.

I've always considered myself a writer.

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

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

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.

As much as I can, as much as I can afford, I keep ticket prices down. Rock 'n' roll was developed as the people's voice, the people's art, it was grassroots. I don't believe that the people should be estranged from their rock stars. They're not kings and queens - all rock stars are those who are able to give back a bit of culture to other people. It's people's heritage.

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

I wish I could just project everything on the paper.

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

People say hello to me. I mean, sometimes the sanitation truck goes by and says, hey Patti.

When I was a kid, I loved Sherlock Holmes. I'm not interested in crimes. I'm interested in the mind of the detective and his process, which to me is a lot like the artist.