Patti Smith

“The new artists coming through were very materialistic and Hollywood, not so engaged in communication.”

“I get irritated with the world. I get irritated with politicians. I get very irritated with governments and with corporations, but in terms of imagination - my imagination is always fertile....”

“My siblings were a bit younger than me, and I was always entertaining them and making up stories.”

“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.”

“I always wanted to be an artist, writer and poet since I was seven, and one has to live long enough to evolve as an artist and do one's finest work.”

“What I wanted in life always was to write something as good as 'Pinocchio.' I wanted to write. I wanted to evolve. I wanted to grow.”

“I know I'm a strong performer. I'm not an evolved musician.”

“I was a sickly child, not very strong physically. I wasn't really the greatest in school. I didn't really excel in anything particularly. But I was happy with who I was.”

“I get up, and if I feel out of sorts, I'll do some exercises, I'll feed my cat, then I go get my coffee, take a notebook, and write for a couple of hours.”

“My dad got a job in a factory in Philadelphia, so I was raised in Germantown in a sort of a barracks for soldiers. They had housing for temporary housing. And then my parents saved money and...”

“Nothing will stifle your human evolution more than fame and fortune.”

“My mother answers all my fan mail.”

“I had a really happy childhood - my siblings were great, my mother was very fanciful, and I loved to read. But there was always financial strife.”

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

“First of all, anybody who has lasted 30 and went through the 60's is really a survivor.”

“I was studying Francis of Assisi for quite some time, when Benedict was still the pope. And I was studying it for a song that I did for my last album, 'Banga.'”

“I remember the first club we played in San Francisco. There were a lot of people on motorcycles standing around outside, and I had trouble getting in. I didn't have any ID, and the guy at th...”

“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.”

“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 doi...”

“I like gettin' old.”