110+ Patti Smith Quotes And Sayings

Following is our list of the best Patti Smith quotes and sayings.

Top 10 Patti Smith Quotes

1. My sunglasses are like my guitar.
2. Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.
3. Life isn't some vertical or horizontal line -- you have your own interior world, and it's not neat.
4. I imagined myself as Frida to Diego, both muse and maker. I dreamed of meeting an artist to love and support and work with side by side.
5. Swift is the arrow, dark is the thorn, the slate is clean, the future awaits, awake.
6. In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.
7. Make your interactions with people transformational, not just transactional.
8. To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.
9. 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.
10. If we keep our little flame alive, our first feeling of enthusiasm of who we are, without the influence or intervention of others, we will prevail.

Patti Smith Image Quotes

Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire. — Patti Smith

Patti Smith Short Quotes

• Wisdom was a teapot, pouring from above. Desolation angels, served it up with love.
• Paths that cross will cross again
• Even as a child, I knew what I didn't want. I didn't want to wear red lipstick.
• People say hello to me. I mean, sometimes the sanitation truck goes by and says, hey Patti.
• As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag.
• Love is an angel disguised as lust.
• Got to lose control before you take control.
• Freedom is...the right to write the wrong words.
• I wanted to go to Portland because it's a really good book town.
• We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world.

Patti Smith Famous Quotes And Sayings

Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire. — Patti Smith

I wasn't attractive, I wasn't very verbal, I wasn't very smart in school. I wasn't anything that showed the world I was something special, but I had this tremendous hope all the time. I had this tremendous spirit that kept me going... I was a happy child, because I had this feeling that I was going to go beyond my body physical... I just knew it. — Patti Smith

For life is the best thing we have in this existence. And if we should desire to believe in something, it should be a beacon within. This beacon being the sun, sea, and sky, our children, our work, our companions and, most simply put, the embodiment of love. — Patti Smith

We used to laugh at our small selves, saying that I was a bad girl trying to be good and that he was a good boy trying to be bad. Through the years these roles would reverse, then reverse again, until we came to accept our dual natures. We contained opposing principles, light and dark. — Patti Smith

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

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

Life is an adventure of our own design intersected by fate and a series of lucky and unlucky accidents. — Patti Smith

The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. He must return to the material world in order to do his work. It's the artist's responsibility to balance mystical communication and the labor of creation. — Patti Smith

We were walking toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us. Robert enjoyed being noticed, and he affectionately squeezed my hand. "oh, take their picture," said the woman to her bemused husband, "I think they're artists." "Oh, go on," he shrugged. "They're just kids. — Patti Smith

My father was always talking about God, and I idolized my father, so I'd spend hours trying to have mental telepathy with God. — Patti Smith

I don't think the average American understands what patriotism truthfully is. That's why when I attack our country or attack the government, it's sometimes looked at as unpatriotic. It's not. — Patti Smith

When I was a teenager, I had trouble getting a boyfriend, so I imagined Arthur Rimbaud or Bob Dylan as my boyfriend. — Patti Smith

I'm right here right now and I want now to be the Golden Age ...if only each generation would realize that the time for greatness is right now when they're alive ... the time to flower is now. — Patti Smith

In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer. — Patti Smith

I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust. — Patti Smith

The film [Dream of Life], in the end, is life-affirming, and I think it's always useful for people to be reminded that no matter how rough things get, no matter what kind of twists and turns our lives can take, we can keep going, we can create something new. — Patti Smith

What is the soul? What color is it? I suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while I was dreaming and fail to return. I did my best not to fall asleep, to keep it inside of me where it belonged. — Patti Smith

We need a new cosmology. New gods. New sacraments. Another drink. — Patti Smith

Life is like a roller coaster. It's never going to be perfect - it is going to have perfect moments, and then rough spots, but it's all worth it. — Patti Smith

Vowels are the most illuminated letters in the alphabet. Vowels are the colors and souls of poetry and speech. (1976 Penthouse interview) — Patti Smith

The moment of creative impulse is what an artist gives you. You look at a Pollock, and it can't give you the tools to do a painting like that yourself, but in doing the work, Pollock shares with you the moment of creative impulse that drove him to do that work. — Patti Smith

I never really wanted to be a singer - not with any longevity. But I always wanted to be a writer. — Patti Smith

I don't know about that. I'm not a very analytical person. I have various impulses. I've often quoted Walt Whitman's phrase "I contain multitudes." I understand that. — Patti Smith

I was horny, but I was innocent 'cause I was a real-late bloomer and not particularly attractive. In fact, homely. — Patti Smith

A good artist's always got his hand in his zipper. — Patti Smith

I always enjoyed doing transgender songs. — Patti Smith

When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel. — Patti Smith

If the postman is saying hello to you, then I feel like, wow, thats something special. — Patti Smith

Often the simplest song is the hardest to write. — Patti Smith

Most women writers don't interest me because they're hung up with being a woman, they're hung up with being Jewish, they're hung up with being somebody or other. Rather than just going, just spurting, just creating. — Patti Smith

I hadn't performed or been in the public eye for about 16 years. When my husband passed away, I was obliged to go back to work to take care of our kids. I also wanted to do a record in memory of him. So we did Gone Again. During that process, I had to be photographed and had to go back to doing articles and interviews. — Patti Smith

Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand. — Patti Smith

I was so horny in school it felt like my body was filled with electricity. I felt like I had neon bones or something. — Patti Smith

Poetry is a solitary process. One does not write poetry for the masses. Poetry is a self-involved, lofty pursuit. Songs are for the people. When I'm writing a song, I imagine performing it. I imagine giving it. It's a different aspect of communication. It's for the people. — Patti Smith

What I've always tried to do is to express the highest point of me, and rock 'n' roll is the first and the most open form created by our generation. The cool thing about it is that you get the power, you get the rhythm; you can be taken over sexually, you can be taken over cerebrally; it's great to look at - it's a package deal. — Patti Smith

An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God. — Patti Smith

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

I'm certain, as we filled down the great staircase, that I appeared the same as ever, a moping twelve years-old, all arms and legs. 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

My mother answers all my fan mail. — Patti Smith

I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I'm writing a poem or drawing, I'm not a female; I'm an artist. — Patti Smith

People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything. — Patti Smith

In fact, I thought my calling was to be a painter. — Patti Smith

No, my work does not reflect my sexual preferences, it reflects the fact that I feel total freedom as an artist. — Patti Smith

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 humanity's dirty plates, though often sometimes taking a cab to a restaurant is more convenient. — Patti Smith

I have a daughter who's 11 years old. Maybe she'll grow up independent and really really heavy and become a movie star and she'll play me in my life story. — Patti Smith

You can't carve up the world. It's not a pie. — Patti Smith

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. — Patti Smith

He dreamed of amassing musicians from all over the world in Woodstock and they would sit in a field in a circle and play and play. It didn't matter what key or tempo or what melody, they would keep on playing through their discordance until they found a common language. — Patti Smith

I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf. — Patti Smith

You can't make a mistake when you improvise. — Patti Smith

Somehow I started introducing writing into my drawings, and after a time, the language took over and I started getting very involved with the handwriting and then the look of the handwriting. — Patti Smith

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

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. — Patti Smith

An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch. — Patti Smith

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. — Patti Smith

In the period where I had to live the life of a citizen - a life where, like everybody else, I did tons of laundry and cleaned toilet bowls, changed hundreds of diapers and nursed children - I learned a lot. — Patti Smith

Maybe I'll be 48 and die in the gutter in Paris. — Patti Smith

I know fashion is a material thing, but we live in a material world and I love clothes. — Patti Smith

Blessedness is within us all. — Patti Smith

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. — Patti Smith

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

It will not fall away. Man cannot judge it. For art sings of God, and ultimately belongs to Him. — Patti Smith

I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business. — Patti Smith

I wasn't thinking so much of music. I wasnt thinking so much of perfection or stardom or any of that stuff. — Patti Smith

A lot of children don't have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester. — Patti Smith

Light inspires me. I'm drawn to architecture, often graves, statues, trees - things usually that are quite still. I've been taking pictures continuously since 1995 until the end of Polaroid film. I'm taking very few pictures nowadays because I have very little film left, most of it expired. — Patti Smith

Nothing is a hobby - each discipline is its own world with its own high standards. Of course, every artist has 'minor works' that they do, but I don't think I have any 'minor disciplines.' — Patti Smith

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. — Patti Smith

Everyone thinks of God as a man - you can't help it - Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man. — Patti Smith

I never had aspirations to go into politics or medicine. I always wanted to be an artist of some sort. I wasn't so politically motivated. I felt that the world from an early age was disappointing. My father taught me about the bomb, and it was eye-opening. From then on, I thought grown-ups needed to do a better job. I still think that. — Patti Smith

The new artists coming through were very materialistic and Hollywood, not so engaged in communication. — Patti Smith

I never thought of being a performer, never thought of being a singer, never thought of being a photographer. It's just the trajectory of my work. I go to the medium that serves the vision. — Patti Smith

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 wasn't writing, I wasn't drawing, and personality-wise, I was just completely arrogant. I'm not trying to be overly apologetic for my behavior - I wasn't evil. The lifestyle I had was one that lent itself to becoming more and more self-involved. — Patti Smith

My introduction to photography and a lot of how I developed aesthetically was through '50s and early-'60s fashion magazines like Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. — Patti Smith

Americans just don't know what being a movie star's all about. — Patti Smith

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

When I'm on my own with my camera, taking these pictures, it feels as if I am in a room of my own, a self-contained world. — Patti Smith

Punk rock is just another word for freedom. — Patti Smith

The idea of redemption is always good news, even if it means sacrifice or some difficult times. — Patti Smith

As I grew up, one of my strongest allies has been my sister. — Patti Smith

Let's just say that I think any person who aspires, presumes, or feels the calling to be an artist has a built-in sense of duty. — Patti Smith

Since childhood, it was my dream to go where all the poets and artists had been. Rimbaud, Artaud, Brancusi, Camus, Picasso, Bresson, Goddard, Jeanne Moreau, Juliette Greco, everybody - Paris for me was a Mecca. — Patti Smith

Hail brother, the distant thunder is nothing but hearts beating as one. — Patti Smith

Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book. — Patti Smith

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. — Patti Smith

Sometimes I just wanted to raise my hands and stop. But stop what? Maybe just growing up. — Patti Smith

I like my time on earth. And no matter what kind of cards I've been dealt, I'm happy to be there. — Patti Smith

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. — Patti Smith

There's nothing cool about being self-destructive. — Patti Smith

I don't like answering to other people's philosophies. I don't have any philosophy, I just believe in stuff. Either I believe in something or I don't. Like, I believe in the Rolling Stones but not in the Dave Clark Five. There's nothing philosophic about it. Whenever I'm linked with a movement, it pisses me off. — Patti Smith