I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.
PATTI SMITHA good artist’s always got his hand in his zipper.
More Patti Smith Quotes
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For Christmas every year, my mother used to give me those cheap little diaries that would tell your horoscope and provide a little blank slot for each day.
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A good artist’s always got his hand in his zipper.
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All I’ve ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful.
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I was always a tomboy as a kid. I always had boyfriends. I was just a regular girl growing up in the late ’50s and early ’60s, but I was never really attracted to what the girls were attracted to: makeup, my appearance, homemaking.
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One day we’ll go in together, and the work will be ours.
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Writing is not some quiet, closet act.
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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.
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Hail brother, the distant thunder is nothing but hearts beating as one.
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Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet. Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech. (1976 Penthouse interview)
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The two things that constantly inspired me were books and travel.
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I was never a singer, I can’t play any instruments, I had no training. Plus, I was brought up in a time when all the great rock stars were male. I didn’t have any template for what I was doing. I did what I did out of frustration and concern.
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In my low periods, I wondered what was the point of creating art. For whom? Are we animating God? Are we talking to ourselves? And what was the ultimate goal? To have one’s work caged in art’s great zoos – the Modern, the Met, the Louvre?
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I got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortés.
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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.
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I felt alien my whole life but I didn’t feel alien because of my gender. Other people made me aware of my gender.
PATTI SMITH






