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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’m not really a nostalgic person.
PATTI SMITH

Nostalgic Person Really
Remember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.
PATTI SMITH

Mortals Poetry Remember
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
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
One day we’ll go in together, and the work will be ours.
PATTI SMITH

Day One Together Work
All I’ve ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful.
PATTI SMITH

Children Want Wonderful
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 had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.
PATTI SMITH

Artist Hungered Proof Stuff
Life isn’t some vertical or horizontal line — you have your own interior world, and it’s not neat.
PATTI SMITH

Horizontal Lines Neat World
The film [Dream of Life] doesn’t hide anything, except maybe moments of sorrow or darkness that belonged to me.
PATTI SMITH

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

Adventure Design Fate
You can’t work on that scale without trust. I learned that from working with Robert Mapplethorpe.
PATTI SMITH

Good Scales Trust Zipper
Should I pursue a path so twisted? Should I crawl defeated and gifted?
PATTI SMITH

Path Questions Twisted Unanswered
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
Even as a child, I knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to wear red lipstick.
PATTI SMITH

Children Lipstick Need Red

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?

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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Patti Smith Quotes