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Life isn’t some vertical or horizontal line — you have your own interior world, and it’s not neat.

Patti Smith

Will you pretend you’re my boyfriend?
PATTI SMITH

Assume Boyfriend Hope Pretend
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.
PATTI SMITH

Artist Ethic Morale Work
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.
PATTI SMITH

Pocket Two World
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.
PATTI SMITH

Hand People Vision
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

Alien Gender People
The two things that constantly inspired me were books and travel.
PATTI SMITH

Book Inspired Two
My father came a couple of times, but he always blamed his hearing loss on my loud amplifiers. So he didn’t come anymore, but I had his support.
PATTI SMITH

Couple Father Loss
I don’t know why, the very first word on my very first record is ‘Jesus.’ I still invoke him as an entity to reckon with.
PATTI SMITH

First Jesus Record
I knew if I lived long enough I would be poet laureate of something.
PATTI SMITH

Laureate Long Poet
Trust is everything between two artists, or between subject and artist. You have to have trust or nothing good will come out of it.
PATTI SMITH

Artist Nothing Subject Two
A good artist’s always got his hand in his zipper.
PATTI SMITH

Artist Hand Zipper
Well, I’m not one of those people who needs the limelight. If I’m performing, that’s what I’m doing. If I’m not, I don’t long for it. I don’t need the approval of an audience, or applause.
PATTI SMITH

Limelight Long Need People Perform
So my last image was as the first. A sleeping youth cloaked in light, who opened his eyes with a smile of recognition for someone who had never been a stranger.
PATTI SMITH

Eye Light Recognition Sleep
I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.
PATTI SMITH

Artist Hungered Proof Stuff
One day we’ll go in together, and the work will be ours.
PATTI SMITH

Day One Together Work
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?
PATTI SMITH

Art Period Point Talk Zoos

Life isn’t some vertical or horizontal line — you have your own interior world, and it’s not neat.

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Life isn’t some vertical or horizontal line — you have your own interior world, and it’s not neat.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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