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Patti Smith Quotes | Quotes said by Patti Smith

  • Patti Smith Quote #1

    ...the law of empathy, by which he could, by his will, transfer himself into an object or a work of art, and thus inflence the outer world. He did not feel redeemed by the work he did. He did not seek redemption. He sought to see what others did not, the projection of his imagination.


  • Patti Smith Quote #2

    A real prison breakfast I said.
    Yeah, but we are free.
    And that summed it up.

  • Patti Smith Quote #3

    A writer or any artist can’t expect to be embraced by the people. I've done records where it seemed like no one listened to them. You write poetry books that maybe 50 people read. And you just keep doing your work because you have to, because it’s your calling.

    But it’s beautiful to be embraced by the people.

    Some people have said to me, “Well, don’t you think that kind of success spoils one as an artist? If you’re a punk rocker, you don’t want to have a hit record…”

    And I say to them, “Fuck you!”

    One does their work for the people. And the more people you can touch, the more wonderful it is. You don’t do your work and say, “I only want the cool people to read it.” You want everyone to be transported, or hopefully inspired by it.

    When I was really young, William Burroughs told me, “Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work. And make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.

  • Patti Smith Quote #4

    All I needed for the mind was to be led to new stations. All I needed for the heart was to visit a place of greater storms.

  • Patti Smith Quote #5

    And the eye became a body, the murky heart of a rose. The sinister shadow of an orchid. Or the indolent poppy balanced behind the ear of Baudelaire.

  • Patti Smith Quote #6

    Bringing good news is imparting hope to one's fellow man. The idea of redemption is always good news, even if it means sacrifice or some difficult times.

  • Patti Smith Quote #7

    But secretly I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revelation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not.

  • Patti Smith Quote #8

    Christ was a man worthy to rebel against, for he was rebellion itself.

  • Patti Smith Quote #9

    Everything comes down so pasteurized
    everything comes down 16 degrees
    they say your amplifier is too loud
    turn your amplifier down
    are we high all alone on our knees
    memory is just hips that swing
    like a clock
    the past projects fantastic scenes
    tic/toc tic/toc tic/toc
    fuck the clock!

  • Patti Smith Quote #10

    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 Quote #11

    Freedom is...the right to write the wrong words.

  • Patti Smith Quote #12

    Good news doesn't necessarily have to be a positive thing. Bringing good news is imparting hope to one's fellow man.

  • Patti Smith Quote #13

    Grief starts to become indulgent, and it doesn't serve anyone, and it's painful. But if you transform it into remembrance, then you're magnifying the person you lost and also giving something of that person to other people, so they can experience something of that person.

  • Patti Smith Quote #14

    He took twelve pictures that day.
    Within a few days he showed me the contact sheet. This one has the magic, he said.
    When I look at it now, I never see me. I see us.

  • Patti Smith Quote #15

    I believe in movement. I believe in that lighthearted balloon, the world. I believe in midnight and the hour of noon. But what else do I believe in? Sometimes everything. Sometimes nothing. It fluctuates like light flitting over a pond. I believe in life, which one day each of us shall lose. When we are young we think we won’t, that we are different. As a child I thought I would never grow up, that I could will it so. And then I realized, quite recently, that I had crossed some line, unconsciously cloaked in the truth of my chronology. How did we get so damn old? I say to my joints, my iron-colored hair. Now I am older than my love, my departed friends. Perhaps I will live so long that the New York Public Library will be obliged to hand over the walking stick of Virginia Woolf. I would cherish it for her, and the stones in her pocket. But I would also keep on living, refusing to surrender my pen.

  • Patti Smith Quote #16

    I came into music because I thought the presentation of poetry wasn't vibrant enough. So I merged improvised poetry with basic rock chords.

  • Patti Smith Quote #17

    I don't fuck much with the past but I fuck plenty with the future.

  • Patti Smith Quote #18

    I had one of those headaches. It kept pounding and got into that crazy realm where the guillotine seems like a good idea.

  • Patti Smith Quote #19

    I have great respect for my parents. I got such beautiful things from both of them. It doesn't mean that we didn't have our rough times, but they were remarkable people who were open-minded, creative and hard-working, and had great senses of humor.

  • Patti Smith Quote #20

    I may not know what is in your mind, but I know how your mind works.

  • Patti Smith Quote #21

    I paced while he slept, ricocheting like a dove skidding the lonely confines of a Joseph Cornell box.

  • Patti Smith Quote #22

    I reflected on the fact that no matter how good I aspired to be, I was never going to achieve perfection

  • Patti Smith Quote #23

    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 Quote #24

    I would rather write or record something great and have it overlooked than do mediocre work and have it be popular.

  • Patti Smith Quote #25

    I'm more materialistic about myself than I am about objects

  • Patti Smith Quote #26

    I'm not afraid of terrorism at all. I'm afraid of loss of our freedom, loss of mobility, loss of global comradeship.

  • Patti Smith Quote #27

    I've said this over and over, but I'll say it a million more times - I'm concerned more about the death of a bee than I am about terrorism. Because we're losing hives and bees by the millions because of such strong pesticides.

  • Patti Smith Quote #28

    In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.

  • Patti Smith Quote #29

    In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth. For nothing is more precious than the life force and may the love of that force guide you as you go.

  • Patti Smith Quote #30

    In my way of thinking, anything is possible. Life is at the bottom of things and belief at the top, while the creative impulse, dwelling in the center, informs all.

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