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 SMITHRemember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.
More Patti Smith Quotes
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The two things that constantly inspired me were books and travel.
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Should I pursue a path so twisted? Should I crawl defeated and gifted?
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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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One day we’ll go in together, and the work will be ours.
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I knew if I lived long enough I would be poet laureate of something.
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Remember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.
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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’m okay with roaming around the world in my bunk for days on end. Maybe every third day I’ll get a shower or stumble out at dawn and realize I’m in a field in Poland. I like that kind of life.
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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.
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Will you pretend you’re my boyfriend?
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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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I was quite an insomniac. I rarely slept as a child. Having God to talk to at night was nice.
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Writing is not some quiet, closet act.
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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?
PATTI SMITH -
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