Patti Smith
There's nothing cool about being self-destructive.Collection: Self
John Coltrane, he talks to god. He starts playing his solo, he might play for 14 minutes. For 14 minutes, it seems like he's talking to god, but he always takes a hold of the melody.Collection: Melody
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.Collection: Girl
One thing I did have under my belt was, my mother lost her mother when she was 11. She mourned her mother her whole life and made my grandmother seem present even though I never met her. I couldn't imagine how my mom could go on but she did, she took care of us, she worked two jobs and had four children. She was such a good example of how to conduct oneself in a time of grief. When I lost my husband, I tried to model myself as much as I could on her.Collection: Mom
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.Collection: Alcohol
I like energy. I like to feel it cracklin', I like sexual energy in a room, and I like tension.Collection: Energy
...heroine: the artist, the premier mistress writhering in a garden graced w/highly polished blades of grass... release (ethiopium) is the drug...an animal howl says it all...notes pour into the caste of freedom...the freedom to be intense...to defy social order and break the slow kill monotony of censorship. to break from the long bonds of servitude-ruthless adoration of the celestial shepherd. let us celebrate our own flesh-to embrace not ones race mais the marathon-to never let go of the fiery sadness called desire.Collection: Letting Go
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.Collection: Roaming Around
I started thinking what could happen with my art and I realized that the biggest thing that could is that it winds up in a museum. It's like finding a rare animal and putting it in the zoo.Collection: Art
Sometimes you write passages that don't need to be rewritten. Performance is that for me. Improvisation, things that happen in the moment, are sometimes wonderful, or wonderful as a moment to be shared between performer and people, but that's it. There might be a strong bond between you and the people, a transformative night, but as a live record it might not translate.Collection: Strong
I have seen a lifetime of transgender people and it was hard enough being gay in the '50s and early '60s. One couldn't imagine the cruelty that trans people had to face back then.Collection: Gay
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.Collection: Stars
I longed to read everything I possibly could, and the things I read in turn produced new yearnings.Collection: New Year
Fate is like a secret friend that helps push you on into life.Collection: Fate
If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer...When I was younger, I felt it was my duty to wake people up. I thought poetry was asleep. I thought rock 'n' roll was asleep...An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.Collection: Sorry
Ms. It sounds like a sick bumblebee, it sounds frigid. I mean, who the hell would ever want to stick his hand up the dress of somebody who goes around calling herself something like Ms.? It's all so stupid.Collection: Stupid
The film [Dream of Life] doesn't hide anything, except maybe moments of sorrow or darkness that belonged to me.Collection: Dream
Good press, bad press, whatever, only means a lot to me if it's writ by somebody I respect, by somebody I like.Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Thinking
Your soul was like a network of spittle.Collection: Expression
Technology is 50% of rock 'n' roll - the magic, the art, the performance. If you don't have good technicians and a strong road crew who are devoted and believe in you and protect you, you're totally naked.Collection: Art
I'm estranged from social media and I don't really deal with it. I tried to work on a website and it took up all my time. People wanted me to have a Twitter account and I spent the whole day figuring out what would be the first message. I still haven't wrapped my head around it.Collection: Media
I have abandoned so many projects but in the '80s when I left public life to be married and have real children - I love my children and I would never sacrifice them for anything - I had to find a way to simultaneously be a mother and wife and fulfill my duties and still be true to myself as a writer.Collection: Mother
Steven [Sebring] was documenting me as a widow with two children, going from 50 to 60 years old. My focus, during that time, was to rediscover myself, stay healthy, take care of my kids and reestablish a relationship with the people.Collection: Children
I started resenting how much art robs from life. I'd go to a party and I couldn't enjoy myself, even sexually. All I could think was how I was going to reinvent the experience into a piece of art.Collection: Art
Should I pursue a path so twisted? Should I crawl defeated and gifted?Collection: Unanswered Questions
I think I work in two worlds. I'll always try to kick through a wall. I did that when I was younger and I still have my way of doing that.Collection: Wall
I love my little overgrown yard. And my house is wonderful. It's everything that I need.Collection: House
I wasn't thinking so much of music. I wasnt thinking so much of perfection or stardom or any of that stuff.Collection: Thinking
I wasn't taking drugs or drinking. I was working and working and working. But I wasn't writing anything.Collection: Drinking
Ultimately, we are not seeking others to bow to, but to reinforce our individual natures, to help us suffer our own choices, to guide us on our own particular journeys.Collection: Journey
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.Collection: Jesus
The two things that constantly inspired me were books and travel.Collection: Book
I don't care whether they're men or women, that's bullshit. A good writer can get into any gender, can get into any mouth. When I write I may be a Brando creep, or a girl laying on the floor, or a Japanese tourist, or a slob like Richard Speck. You have to be a chameleon when you're writing.Collection: Girl
I still don't want to be put in the feminist bag. I'm a humanist.Collection: Feminist
I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.Collection: Whole
Everything distracted me, but most of all myself.Collection: Distracted
I have vague memories, like impressions on glass plates.Collection: Memories
We went our separate ways, but within walking distance of one another.Collection: Distance
Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.Collection: Compassion
Both of them were ahead of their time, but they didn't live long enough to see the time they were ahead of.Collection: Long
One thing I like about getting older is things, your spectrum widens, your capacity for compassion widens.Collection: Compassion
I think its very important that we enjoy our life, that we get everything we can out of it.Collection: Thinking
I think it's good for people to see the positive beauty that can flower from the deepest grieving.Collection: Flower
I love being alive. I like being a human being.Collection: Love Is
Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe, love is a banquet on which we feed.Collection: Romantic
I wanted to remember the original energy; strip away all the glamour and limousines and tons of drugs. I wanted to get back to the revolutionary ideas, merging poetry and rhythm and rock and roll.Collection: Rocks
Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?Collection: Heart
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?Collection: Art