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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

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

Adventure Design Fate
Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.
PATTI SMITH

Fun Go Inspirational Letting
I’ve always considered myself a writer.
PATTI SMITH

Always Consider Myself Writer
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 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
You can’t work on that scale without trust. I learned that from working with Robert Mapplethorpe.
PATTI SMITH

Good Scales Trust Zipper
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
All I’ve ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful.
PATTI SMITH

Children Want Wonderful
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
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
Writing is not some quiet, closet act.
PATTI SMITH

Closets Quiet Writing
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
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
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
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

Alcohol Causes Drug

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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