“Some of us are born rebellious. Like Jean Genet or Arthur Rimbaud, I roam these mean streets like a villain, a vagabond, an outcast, scavenging for the scraps that may perchance plummet off...”
0 likes
Author detail
Patti Smith is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses. Called the "punk poet laureate", Smith fused rock and poetry in her work. On November 17, 2010, Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids.
Quotes
Showing 41-60 of 214
“Some of us are born rebellious. Like Jean Genet or Arthur Rimbaud, I roam these mean streets like a villain, a vagabond, an outcast, scavenging for the scraps that may perchance plummet off...”
0 likes
“I learned a lot from Arthur Rimbaud. People talk about how he wanted to be a seer and do that through the derangement of the senses. What they forget was that he also advocated, sternly and...”
0 likes
“What I say should always be prefaced with this: I'm not really politically articulate. I just try to be like Thomas Paine: what is common sense? So when I say these things to you, I am speak...”
0 likes
“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.”
0 likes
“My parents had three kids right after the Second World War, and we were all sort of sickly. Then I had a fourth sibling, with very serious asthma. The medical bills... So my parents always s...”
0 likes
“I come from a working-class family, and I've been working since I was 13, from babysitting to blueberry picking to factory work to bookstore work. And of course, being a mother and homemaker...”
0 likes
“I love playing the Fillmore. I love the walk from the hotel and climbing up those old, iron stairs that lead to the stage. I imagine Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and all those ot...”
0 likes
“I voted for Obama. I was very happy when he won. But Obama hasn't really been able to effectively do anything that has made me... He hasn't helped the environment. He didn't close Guantanamo...”
0 likes
“Everyone thinks of God as a man - you can't help it - Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man.”
0 likes
“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,...”
0 likes
“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 million...”
0 likes
“It was always my belief that rock and roll belonged in the hands of the people, not rock stars.”
0 likes
“If I'm taking a picture of Brancusi's grave, I know that there's something of him, of his mortal remains, beneath my feet, and there's something beautiful about that.”
0 likes
“Besides me wanting to be an artist, I wanted to be a movie star.”
0 likes
“I've lost lots of men in my life, besides my mother, which is a whole different loss.”
0 likes
“Robert Mapplethorpe, I met in 1967. He was a student at Pratt, though even as a student a fully formed artist. We went through many things in our life together. He became my loved one, then...”
0 likes
“The Bible is very resonant. It has everything: creation, betrayal, lust, poetry, prophecy, sacrifice. All great things are in the Bible, and all great writers have drawn from it and more tha...”
0 likes
“If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer.”
0 likes
“I sang 'O Holy Night' with the Vatican orchestra, but also a Blake - a lullaby that William Blake wrote for the Christ child, and I set it to music, and the Vatican orchestra played the musi...”
0 likes
“I don't think public life in and of itself can destroy you. I think it's the way people react to it, and some people are more sturdy than others... I don't think any one faction can be blame...”
0 likes