Quotes by Patti Smith
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.
If I'm taking a picture of Brancusi's grave, I know that there's something of him, of his mortal remains, beneath my feet, and there's something beautiful about that.
In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.
I've written a lot of prose. I just haven't published it.
I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords.
People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.
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.
I'm a worker. I do the work to communicate, and I want people to embrace it, and when they do I'm happy.
I want to be around a really long time. I want to be a thorn in the side of everything as long as possible.
You can't carve up the world. It's not a pie.
An artist wears his work in place of wounds.
I'm not a very analytical person.
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.
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.
Good news doesn't necessarily have to be a positive thing. Bringing good news is imparting hope to one's fellow man.
Maybe I'll be 48 and die in the gutter in Paris.
My style says, 'Look at me, don't look at me.'
People have the power to redeem the work of fools.
Everyone thinks of God as a man - you can't help it - Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man.
I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.
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.
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.
My parents were very well read. They were both New Englanders, not highly educated, but they had a sophisticated... they were both very humanistic, and they were sophisticated readers.
I've always believed in having a sense of balance and stealth.
I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.
