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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.

Patti Smith

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

Adventure Design Fate
The two things that constantly inspired me were books and travel.
PATTI SMITH

Book Inspired Two
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

Give Horoscope Mother Year
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
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

Desire Emerald Loss
Should I pursue a path so twisted? Should I crawl defeated and gifted?
PATTI SMITH

Path Questions Twisted Unanswered
I knew if I lived long enough I would be poet laureate of something.
PATTI SMITH

Laureate Long Poet
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

Boyfriend Girl Growi Kid Tomboy
With the death of Robert Mapplethorpe, I had lost my main collaborator in taking photographs. So I didn’t know who to work with.
PATTI SMITH

Collaborator Lost Photograph
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
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

Frustration Rock Star
I was quite an insomniac. I rarely slept as a child. Having God to talk to at night was nice.
PATTI SMITH

Children Nice Night
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

Actual Artist Human Matters
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

Animate Art Period Talk Zoo
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.
PATTI SMITH

Around Dawn Roaming World

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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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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Popular Authors

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