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1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

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

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More Patti Smith Quotes

• 

  I’m not really a nostalgic person.

  PATTI SMITH
  NostalgicPersonReally
• 

  To be an artist – actually, to be a human being in these times – it’s all difficult. … What matters is to know what you want and pursue it.

  PATTI SMITH
  ActualArtistHumanMatters
• 

  I was quite an insomniac. I rarely slept as a child. Having God to talk to at night was nice.

  PATTI SMITH
  ChildrenNiceNight
• 

  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.

  PATTI SMITH
  FrustrationRockStar
• 

  One day we’ll go in together, and the work will be ours.

  PATTI SMITH
  DayOneTogetherWork
• 

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

  PATTI SMITH
  HorizontalLinesNeatWorld
• 

  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.

  PATTI SMITH
  GiveHoroscopeMotherYear
• 

  Writing is not some quiet, closet act.

  PATTI SMITH
  ClosetsQuietWriting
• 

  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.

  PATTI SMITH
  BoyfriendGirlGrowiKidTomboy
• 

  I’ve lost many, many friends through natural causes, through alcohol, through drugs, through AIDS. And every time I lose a friend or a loved one, it reminds me how great life is.

  PATTI SMITH
  AlcoholCausesDrug
• 

  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
  AnimateArtPeriodTalkZoo
• 

  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
  AlienGenderPeople
• 

  Even as a child, I knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to wear red lipstick.

  PATTI SMITH
  ChildrenLipstickNeedRed
• 

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

  PATTI SMITH
  LaureateLongPoet
• 

  Remember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.

  PATTI SMITH
  MortalsPoetryRemember
• 

  Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe, love is a banquet on which we feed.

  PATTI SMITH
  FireLoveRomantic
• 

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

  PATTI SMITH
  ChildrenWantWonderful
• 

  A good artist’s always got his hand in his zipper.

  PATTI SMITH
  ArtistHandZipper
• 

  You can’t work on that scale without trust. I learned that from working with Robert Mapplethorpe.

  PATTI SMITH
  GoodScalesTrustZipper
• 

  I’ve always considered myself a writer.

  PATTI SMITH
  AlwaysConsiderMyselfWriter
• 

  Life is an adventure of our own design intersected by fate and a series of lucky and unlucky accidents.

  PATTI SMITH
  AdventureDesignFate
• 

  I refuse to believe that Hendrix had the last possessed hand, that Joplin had the last drunken throat, that Morrison had the last enlightened mind.

  PATTI SMITH
  BelieveHandMind
• 

  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.

  PATTI SMITH
  DesireEmeraldLoss
• 

  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
  LimelightLongNeedPeoplePerform
• 

  Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet. Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech. (1976 Penthouse interview)

  PATTI SMITH
  ColorSoulVowel
• 

  Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.

  PATTI SMITH
  FunGoInspirationalLetting
• 

  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
  CoupleFatherLoss