Top 575 Quotes & Sayings by Patti Smith - Page 2

I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf.

I have a daughter who's 11 years old. Maybe she'll grow up independent and really really heavy and become a movie star and she'll play me in my life story.

Robert Mapplethorpe, I met in 1967. He was a student at Pratt, though even as a student a fully formed artist. We went through many things in our life together. He became my loved one, then my best friend.

Maybe I'll be 48 and die in the gutter in Paris.

Everyone thinks of God as a man - you can't help it - Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man.

People wouldn't know this about me, but I adore ball gowns. I love their cut, their architecture and the thought of the hands of so many seamstresses working on them.

No, my work does not reflect my sexual preferences, it reflects the fact that I feel total freedom as an artist.

The only thing I daydreamed about was being an opera singer. But I was so skinny and so pathetic that that sort of wasn't going to happen.

I don't think the area of Jerusalem should be part of a Jewish state; it belongs to all people, to Christians and Muslims and the Jewish people.

I don't think the Palestinian people or Afghan children or some other things I'm concerned about are at the top of other people's agendas - not right now, when America is going through such a recession and people are suffering across the board financially. But I think all that will change.

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.

First of all, anybody who has lasted 30 and went through the 60's is really a survivor.

What I really like is an intelligent review. It doesn't have to be positive. A review that has some kind of insight, and sometimes people say something that's startling or is so poignant.

From very early on in my childhood - four, five years old - I felt alien to the human race. I felt very comfortable with thinking I was from another planet, because I felt disconnected - I was very tall and skinny, and I didn't look like anybody else, I didn't even look like any member of my family.

Usually when I go to a place for the first time, unless there's something historical or spectacular that nature has to offer, the first thing I like to do is see what's on the minds of the people.

Besides me wanting to be an artist, I wanted to be a movie star.

A lot of children don't have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester.

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.

People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.

Americans just don't know what being a movie star's all about.

Somehow I started introducing writing into my drawings, and after a time, the language took over and I started getting very involved with the handwriting and then the look of the handwriting.

When I was young, all I wanted was to write books and be an artist.

The thing is that as you grow through life, the pursuit of art and the pursuit of new ideas, all these things keeps your mind elastic.

I was a lower middle-class kid. My family had no money. There was no room in our small house where there were already four kids, including myself, living.

My son and daughter lost their father quite young, so we keep him present with us. It's just a daily practice.

The new artists coming through were very materialistic and Hollywood, not so engaged in communication.

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.

Artists are traditionally resistant to labels.

An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.

I'm a worker. I do the work to communicate, and I want people to embrace it, and when they do I'm happy.

Christianity made us think there's one heaven.

I've always thrived on the encouragement of others.

My father's mother was from Liverpool and she had this very beautiful English china. I only wanted to drink my cocoa out of my grandmother's cup and saucer.

In the period where I had to live the life of a citizen - a life where, like everybody else, I did tons of laundry and cleaned toilet bowls, changed hundreds of diapers and nursed children - I learned a lot.

If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer.

A lot of my audience are in their 50s. But they want me to pretend to continue to be pretending.

I had to learn, really, how to rein in my energies and discipline myself. And I found it very very useful. I rebelled against it at first, but it's a good thing to have.

I wanted to go to Portland because it's a really good book town.

I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords. That was my original mission.

I've written a lot of prose. I just haven't published it.

C'mon, I mean who didn't listen to 'The Who' in the 60s?

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.

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.

The cult of celebrity in the '60s and '70s was really more reserved for movie stars or high socialites. Paparazzi didn't care about Janis Joplin.

I just do my work, and I work every day, and my ambition is just to do something better than I last did.

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.

Let's just say that I think any person who aspires, presumes, or feels the calling to be an artist has a built-in sense of duty.

I loved books; I read my childhood away. I was more interested in my interior world.

I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.

An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God.

I know I'm a strong performer. I'm not an evolved musician.

When I stopped performing for 16 years and lived in Michigan and was married and raising my children, I wrote about four or five books. I haven't published them. I just haven't gotten around to it for several reasons.

Mohammed personally mapped out seven heavens. If he got to seven, you know there's more.

In fact, I thought my calling was to be a painter.

I am not really certain how original my contribution to music is as I am obviously an amateur.

All I've ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful.

Bringing good news is imparting hope to one's fellow man. The idea of redemption is always good news, even if it means sacrifice or some difficult times.

What I wanted to do in rock 'n roll was merge poetry with sonic scapes, and the two people who had contributed so much to that were Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

Horses pretty much broke as a record in England.

My mom loved rock 'n roll. My father hated it. We couldn't play it when he was around.