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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

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

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

Color Soul Vowel
I think it’s important for people to realize that we were all young, all naive, and also we had lived in a time that had magic.
PATTI SMITH

Live Magic Naive People Think
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
Writing is not some quiet, closet act.
PATTI SMITH

Closets Quiet Writing
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
I’m from South Jersey: The idea of eating a roll with olive oil and anchovies or some kind of sardine and drinking mint tea definitely comes from reading Paul Bowles.
PATTI SMITH

Drinking Idea Reading
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
All I’ve ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful.
PATTI SMITH

Children Want Wonderful
Everybody’s got to reclaim these thingspoetry, rock’n’roll, political activismand it’s got to be done over and over again. It’s like eating: you can’t say,’Oh, I ate yesterday’.You have to eat again.
PATTI SMITH

Political Rock Yesterday
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
Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.
PATTI SMITH

Fun Go Inspirational Letting
You can’t work on that scale without trust. I learned that from working with Robert Mapplethorpe.
PATTI SMITH

Good Scales Trust Zipper

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Patti Smith Quotes