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As An Artist, I Never Wanted To Be Fettered By Gender Nor Recognized Or Defined As A Female Poet, Musician Or Singer. They Don't Do That With Men - Nobody Says Picasso, The Male Artist. Curators Call Me Up And Say, "we Want Your Work To Be In A Show About Women Artists," And I'm Like, Why? For Christ's Sake, Do We Have To Attach A Gender Onto Everything?

-Patti Smith

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As An Artist, I

Patti Smith

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As An Artist, I Never Wanted To Be Fettered By Gender Nor Recognized Or Defined As A Female Poet, Musician Or Singer. They Don't Do That With Men - Nobody Says Picasso, The Male Artist. Curators Call Me Up And Say, "we Want Your Work To Be In A Show About Women Artists," And I'm Like, Why? For Christ's Sake, Do We Have To Attach A Gender Onto Everything?

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Not Everything We Do As Artists Has Deep Intent. If We Push Barriers, That's Great, But Sometimes We Just Do Our Work. Whether We Make Some Kind Of Statement, Consciously Or Unconsciously, We Shouldn't Take The Innocence Away From What We Do.

I'm An Artist. I'm Interested In How Art Gets Made.

You Can't Make A Mistake When You Improvise.

Often The Simplest Song Is The Hardest To Write.

I Always Hope That Young People Will Think For Themselves And Also Most Importantly, Understand That They Should Judge Themselves On Their Own Merit, Their Good Deeds, However Simple, To Not Judge Themselves By What They Have Materially, By What Other People Think Of Them, Through Social Media.

I Didn't Want Any Middle-of-the-road Creep. I Always Wanted The Toughest Guy In School, The Guy From South Philly Who Wore Tight Black Pants. Y'know, The Guy Who Carried The Umbrella And Wore White Shirts With Real Thin Black Ties. I Was Really Nuts Over This Guy Named Butchie Magic 'cause He Let Me Carry His Switchblade.

When I Was Working On The Lyrics, I Thought Of All The Lullabies We Learn As Children: "away In The Manger," William Blake's Lullabies. I Realized That The Key To Lullabies Is Simplicity.

I'm Not A Critic. I'm Not A Journalist. I'm Not A Philosopher. Arguing That Punk Has Run Its Course Is Like Saying Painting Ran Its Course After The Renaissance. Punk Is An Idea. It's Freedom. And It'll Be Around 200 Years From Now For The People Who Want It.

I Wrote Every Day. I Don't Think I Could Have Written Just Kids Had I Not Spent All Of The 80s Developing My Craft As A Writer.

Will You Pretend You're My Boyfriend?

Swift Is The Arrow, Dark Is The Thorn, The Slate Is Clean, The Future Awaits, Awake.

I Think Its Very Important To Not Be Afraid To Experience Joy In The Middle Of Sorrow.

If Your Label Won't Let You Have The Cover You Want Or Sing The Songs You Want, Then Leave!

I Wish I Could Just Project Everything On The Paper.

I've Embraced Rock 'n' Roll Because It Encompasses All The Things I'm Interested In: Poetry, Revolution, Sexuality, Political Activism - All Of These Things Can Be Found In Rock 'n' Roll. But I Am Also Engaged In All Of These Things Separately.

You Don't Want To Od On Improvisation.

I Gave You A Wrist Watch, Baby, And You Wouldn't Even Give Me The Time Of Day.

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.

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.

I Had No Proof That I Had The Stuff To Be An Artist, Though I Hungered To Be One.

My Father Hated Rock And Roll - Hated It. My First Real Argument With My Father Was Over The Rolling Stones. And He Never, Ever Liked Rock And Roll. He Just Liked Me.

Why Can't I Write Something That Would Awake The Dead? That Pursuit Is What Burns Most Deeply.

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.

My Style Of Performance Poetry Came From The Beatniks, Allen Ginsberg.

The Film [dream Of Life] Is Not Really An Amateur Work, Despite The Fact That None Of Us Have Ever Done Anything Like This Before; Aesthetically, None Of Us Are Amateurs.

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.

I Feel About Politics The Same Way I Do About Religion: I Find The Best I Can From Different Things.

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.

Besides Me Wanting To Be An Artist, I Wanted To Be A Movie Star.

I Didn't Waste My Time On Things I Didn't Love.

Wasting My Time

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.'

When I Was A Teenager, I Dreamed Of Being An Opera Singer Like Maria Callas Or A Jazz Singer Like June Christy Or Chris Connor, Or Approaching Songs With The Kind Of Mystical Lethargy Of Billie Holiday, Or Championing The Downtrodden Like Lotte Lenya. But I Never Dreamed Of Singing In A Rock-and-roll Band.

Make Your Interactions With People Transformational, Not Just Transactional.

I'm Not Really A Nostalgic Person.

Your Soul Was Like A Network Of Spittle.

I Have Loved Books All My Life. There Is Nothing More Beautiful In Our Material World Than The Book.

I Don't Feel That Censorship Keeps Me From Doing The Work, Though. I'm My Bigger Censor.

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 Blamed For A Person's Self Destruction - A Certain Amount Of That Has To Be Innate.

It Was No Hardship To Me To Spend Long Hours Reading And Writing.

I Hate To Be Enclosed. I Don't Like Bathroom Doors - I Don't Shut Them. In Fact, In My House, I Have No Doors.

Put Down Your Cell Phones, Put Everything Away, And Feel Your Blood Pulsing In You, Feel Your Creative Impulse, Feel Your Own Spirit, Your Heart, Your Mind. Feel The Joy Of Being Alive And Free.

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.

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.

An Artist Is Somebody Who Enters Into Competition With God.

Just Because I've Extricated Myself From Religion Doesn't Mean I'm Not Interested In The Scriptures. I Look At The Bible As Itself. It's A Holy Book, It Has Incredible Literature In It And Beautiful Poetry.

When I Started Making Music, We'd Lost A Lot Of Our Great People. Rock Was Moving In A Direction I Didn't Like. Rock Was My Generation's Revolutionary, Sexual, Poetic, And Political Voice, But It Had Become Corporatized. It Was Going Into Stadiums. It Was So Far Removed From Its Basic Roots.

I Think Masturbating Is A Really Important Function In Art. People Don't Like To Hear That Kind Of Stuff, But It's True.

I've Always Thrived On The Encouragement Of Others.

Never Let Go Of That Fiery Sadness Called Desire.

Patti, Did Art Get Us?' I Looked Away, Not Really Wanting To Think About It. 'i Don't Know, Robert. I Don't Know.' Perhaps It Did, But No One Could Regret That. Only A Fool Would Regret Being Had By Art; Or A Saint.

I Learned From Him That Often Contradiction Is The Clearest Way To Truth

The Two Things That Constantly Inspired Me Were Books And Travel.

More Than Anything That's Been The Thread Through My Life - The Desire To Write, The Impulse To Write. I Mean, It's Taken Me Other Places, But It Was The Impulse To Write That Led Me To Singing.

I Liked Being On Stage, I Just Didn't Like The Theatrical Aspect Of Being In Front Of People.

I Was At One Of The Lowest Points Of My Life When We Started This Film [dream Of Life], Except, Of Course, That I Had Two Great Children. But The Film Is Not Documenting A Decline; It's Documenting A Rise Up - First Baby Steps And Then Big Steps Up. The Worst That Could Have Ever Happened To Me Had Already Happened. And So The Film Is On The Ascent. And I Think That Gives It A Nice Spirit.

I Can't Bear Working With A Click Track, We're Not Click Track People. But For "mercy Is ..." We All Got In One Mind Because The Song Is Delicate; It's Not A Song That Showcases A Vocal Or Some Virtuoso.

Sometimes [people] Seem To Think I Came Out Of The Womb, You Know, Cursing, With An Electric Guitar.

I Was Always Trying To Pick Guys Up. I'd Ask Guys Out And Stuff Like That. I Had No Pride. I Was The Biggest Lurch At Dances, Waiting For The Ladies' Choice. I'd Lunge At My Prey Like A Baby Wolf.

Why Do People Want To Know Exactly Who I Am? Am I A Poet? Am I This Or That? I've Always Made People Wary. First They Called Me A Rock Poet. Then I Was A Poet That Dabbled In Rock. Then I Was A Rock Person Who Dabbled In Art.

Sometimes You Have To Abandon Your Own Children For Other Children.

I'm An Intuitive Musician. I Have No Real Technical Skills. I Can Only Play Six Chords On The Guitar.

I Always Wrote Like Rock 'n' Roll. And I Always Listen To Rock 'n' Roll As Poetry.

What Will Happen To Us?" I Asked. "there Will Always Be Us," He Answered.

I Had Gone To Paris To Immerse Myself In Painting And I Came Back Wholly Involved In Words And Rhythms.

I Always Thought My Father [influenced Me Most] Because He Was So Well Read, I Tried To Model Myself On Him, But Really As I Go Through Life I Realise It Was My Mother Who Gave Me The Most Valuable Instructions. I Didn't Understand Or Accept It At The Time. She Taught Me To Read And To Pray - Two Things That Have Really Stayed With Me.

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.

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 Speaking From A Humanist Point Of View. I Just Look Around And See What's Wrong.

Arthur Conan Doyle Had To Be Sherlock Holmes In Order To Envision How Sherlock Holmes Would Unravel A Mystery. He Had To Be In Sherlock's Situations. As A Writer, You Have To Be Of Two Minds.

If The Postman Is Saying Hello To You, Then I Feel Like, Wow, Thats Something Special.

I Didn't Have Any Career Design. I Was Not Thinking About Publishing Or Doing A Record. I Was Just Working. I Was Evolving. I Wanted To Really Comprehend What I Was Doing Before Stepping Too Far Out.

I Always Hesitate When People Call Me A Musician.i Have Had No Musical Training. I Can't Play Anything. I Really Think Of Myself As A Performer. It's Always Been Writing For Me. I Evolved With My Band In Rock 'n' Roll Through Poetry, Not Through Music.

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?

I Didn't Know Kurt Cobain Or Amy Winehouse, But I Was Affected By Both Of Their Deaths Because I Admired Their Work So Much And Mourned Their Youth And Work They Would Never Produce.

Christianity Made Us Think There's One Heaven.

I'm A Worker. I Do The Work To Communicate, And I Want People To Embrace It, And When They Do I'm Happy.

I Think It's Really Great That People Share Their Work [on Myspace] And No One Is Paying For It. I Think That's A Very Healthy Thing And It's Not A Corporate Thing.

I Understood That In This Small Space Of Time We Had Mutually Surrendered Our Loneliness And Replaced It With Trust.

Vowels Are The Most Illuminated Letters In The Alphabet. Vowels Are The Colors And Souls Of Poetry And Speech. (1976 Penthouse Interview)

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.

All I've Ever Wanted To Do Was Create Freedom.

I'm Not Really A Musician. I'm A Performer And I Love Rock 'n' Roll.

Love Is An Angel Disguised As Lust.

Much Has Been Said About Robert, And More Will Be Added. Young Men Will Adopt His Gait. Young Girls Will Wear White Dresses And Mourn His Curls. He Will Be Condemned And Adored. His Excesses Damned Or Romanticized. In The End, Truth Will Be Found In His Work, The Corporeal Body Of The Artist. It Will Not Fall Away. Man Cannot Judge It. For Art Sings Of God, And Ultimately Belongs To Him.

Eyeing The Traffic Circulating The Lobby Hung With Bad Art. Big Invasive Stuff Unloaded On Stanley Bard In Exchange For Rent. The Hotel Is An Energetic, Desperate Haven For Scores Of Gifted Hustling Children From Every Rung Of The Ladder. Guitar Bums And Stoned-out Beauties In Victorian Dresses. Junkie Poets, Playwrights, Broke-down Filmmakers, And French Actors. Everybody Passing Through Here Is Somebody, If Not In The Outside World.

I Would Always Say To Anyone, You Make Choices That Are Important To You. Don't Allow Yourself To Be Exploited By Something As Fleeting As Fame And Fortune. If You're Presenting Yourself In A Way That Important To You In Communicating Your Vision, Then So Be It. No One Should Allow Themselves To Be Exploited Ever.

I Was Raised In Rural South Jersey, And There Was No Culture There. There Was A Small Library, And That Was It. There Was Nothing Else.

The Things I Thought Would Happen Didn't. Things I Never Anticipated Unfolded.

I Hated The Makeup. I Hated All That Pancake Makeup. I Didn't Really Like Dressing For Parts.

I Use Drugs To Work. I Never Use Them To Escape Or For Pleasure. When You Turn To Drugs, All You're Doing Is Turning Inside, Anyway. I Only Use Drugs For Construction. It's Like One Of My Architectural Tools.

It Was Like Being At An Arabian Hoedown With A Band Of Psychedelic Hillbillies (p. 171).

All Of My Role Models, Whether It Was The Disciples, Or John The Baptist Or Arthur Rimbaud, Slept Under The Stars.

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.

I Think Really That's Just The Basic Christian Lesson That Sometimes Takes Us Years And Years To Understand - Have Equal Concern For Another Human Being As You Have For Yourself Or Perhaps Even More Concern For Another Human Being Than You Have For Yourself.

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.

One Thing I Like About Getting Older Is Things, Your Spectrum Widens, Your Capacity For Compassion Widens.

No One Knows How Powerful Technology Is.

Life Isn't Some Vertical Or Horizontal Line -- You Have Your Own Interior World, And It's Not Neat.

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.

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.

Spare The Child And Spoil The Rod, I Am Not Sellin' Myself To God.

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.

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.

Ultimately, I Want To Make Everyone Horny.

Who Can Know The Heart Of Youth But Youth Itself?

When I Was Home, Traditionally Since I Was Young, I'd Write In Cafés. That Was The Romantic Notion In 1963. Café Atmospheres Back Then Were Different. The Café Life Really Stemmed From The Parisians' Idea Of It, With Poets Struggling Over Their Poems And Drinking Coffee. No Music, No Sounds, Maybe A Little Jazz, Or Soul, But Mostly Nothing. Now You Go Into A Café And The Music Is Really Loud, People Are Having Business Meetings, They Are On Their Cellphones. It Changes From Generation To Generation.

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.

I Personally Am Not Interested In People Trying To Pigeonhole Me.

Music Television Is All About The Media-oriented Version Of What It Is To Be A Rock Star; It's Not About What Bob Dylan Or Jimi Hendrix Were About - Which Included Great Images, Sure, But They Had Spiritual And Political And Revolutionary Content, Too.

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.

I Like Making Records Right Now 'cause I Can Express Myself That Way In A Very Immediate, Physical Sense. You Can Always Write A Book, But You Can't Always Do A Rock 'n' Roll Record That's Gonna Work.

Yet You Could Feel A Vibration In The Air, A Sense Of Hastening. It Had Started With The Moon, Inaccessible Poem That It Was. Now Men Had Walked Upon It, Rubber Treads On A Pearl Of The Gods. Perhaps It Was An Awareness Of Time Passing, The Last Summer Of The Decade. Sometimes I Just Wanted To Raise My Hands And Stop. But Stop What? Maybe Just Growing Up.

Rock N' Roll Is Dream Soup, What's Your Brand?

I Think I'm Constantly In A State Of Adjustment.

If I'm Really Working On Something, Writing Or Painting Or Really Concentrating, I Don't Even Think About Brushing My Hair.

Pollution Is A Necessary Result Of The Inability Of Man To Reform And Transform Waste.

I've Written A Lot Of Prose. I Just Haven't Published It.

I Think Its Very Important That We Enjoy Our Life, That We Get Everything We Can Out Of It.

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.

I Don't Think People Should Do Biopics Of Living People. I'm Totally Opposed To That.

I Want To Keep My Life As Unfettered As Possible. So Maybe I'll Just Pretend To Get Rare Books From My Catalogue, And Not Really Get Them.

I Had Met Michael Stipe, And He Was Such A Kind Person, And Extremely Understanding, So I Asked Him If He Knew A Photographer Who Would Come To Detroit, Where I Lived, Who Would Be Child Friendly And Who Would Respect My Home. Michael Suggested Steven [ Sebring]. One Day A Knock Came At My Door, And When I Opened It, There Was Steven. He's Been Like A Brother Ever Since.

It's Not That I Have Compromised Or Anything, But It's Always Been Important To Me To Take Good Care Of Myself And Be A Good Example. I'm Not Much A Role Model In Terms Of Hair Care, Though.

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.

Usually When I Go To A Place For The First Time, Unless There's Something Historical Or Spectacular That Nature Has To Offer, The First Thing I Like To Do Is See What's On The Minds Of The People.

People Have The Power To Redeem The Work Of Fools.

I Still Don't Want To Be Put In The Feminist Bag. I'm A Humanist.

For Me, Personally, I Think Drugs Are Sacred And Should Be Used For Work. That's What I Believe In. Drugs Have A Real Shamanistic Value. I Can Handle Drugs. I've Never Had A Problem.

There Are So Many Great 19th-century Photographers, And It's Really My Favorite Period, But The Amateurs Did Such Beautiful Work.

I Dreamed Of Having A Book Of My Own, Of Writing One That I Could Put On A Shelf.

Good Press, Bad Press, Whatever, Only Means A Lot To Me If It's Writ By Somebody I Respect, By Somebody I Like.

People Called Me The Godmother Of Punk, But I Never Name Myself Anything.

What I Really Like Is An Intelligent Review. It Doesn't Have To Be Positive. A Review That Has Some Kind Of Insight, And Sometimes People Say Something That's Startling Or Is So Poignant.

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.

Got To Lose Control Before You Take Control.

No, My Work Does Not Reflect My Sexual Preferences, It Reflects The Fact That I Feel Total Freedom As An Artist.

As Far As I'm Concerned, Being Any Gender Is A Drag.

An Artist Wears His Work In Place Of Wounds.

I Was Quite An Insomniac. I Rarely Slept As A Child. Having God To Talk To At Night Was Nice.

New Generations Are Intoxicated With The Idea That They Can Make Their Presence Known On The Internet. When I Was Young, There Wasn't Anything Comparable. Very Few Got Their Picture In A Magazine, Fewer Made Records. We Have To Stand Back And Let Them Get Their Footing. Hopefully They'll Come To The Realization That The Most Important Thing Is Their Work And How They Conduct Themselves.

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.

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.

Words Are Just Rules And Regulations To Me.

Rules And Regulations

Hung-up Women Can't Produce Anything But Mediocre Art, And There Ain't No Room For Mediocre Art.

What Helps Me Is Watching Other People Negotiate Loss. I Think About How We Dropped A Bomb On People In Hiroshima And 150,000 People Were Killed In One Night. Those People Had To Mourn And They Had To Rebuild Their City Right Away.

Steven [sebring] Just Fell In With My Family Life. He Helped Me Wash The Dishes And Play With The Kids. I Could Tell That He Was A Person Who Understood Families.

If You Don't Have What You Need, Just Rock With What You've Got!

We Go Through Life. We Shed Our Skins. We Become Ourselves.

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.

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.

My Mother And Father Had So Many Ups And Downs And Stayed With Each Other And Helped Each Other. My Mother Took In Ironing And She Was A Waitress. My Father Was Working In The Factory And He Did People's Tax Returns.

America Is Run By Corporations, It Is Run By Banks And Wall Street. That's Why We Can't Get Guns Under Control. It's Because All These Lobbyists Don't Want Gun Control, They Don't Want Us To Have Strong Environmental Safety Guards. Young People Can Become Aware Of That And They Are The Most Powerful Lobby. With A Click Of A Text, You Can Have Millions Of People Voting For One Person.

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.

Grief Isn't All Tears.

Paths That Cross Will Cross Again

I Was Like One Of The Boys In School Who Flap Their Legs Frantically Under The Desk. I Always Had This Weird Feeling Between My Legs And I Had No Idea What It Was. I Didn't Know Girls Masturbated. I Never Touched Myself Or Anything.

From Very Early On In My Childhood - Four, Five Years Old - I Felt Alien To The Human Race. I Felt Very Comfortable With Thinking I Was From Another Planet, Because I Felt Disconnected - I Was Very Tall And Skinny, And I Didn't Look Like Anybody Else, I Didn't Even Look Like Any Member Of My Family.

We Need A New Cosmology. New Gods. New Sacraments. Another Drink.

Sometimes I Get Lost In Watching A Film. The Sorrow, Or The Frustration, Is When It Doesn't Happen For A Long Time.

I Am Not Really Certain How Original My Contribution To Music Is As I Am Obviously An Amateur.

One Day We’ll Go In Together, And The Work Will Be Ours.

Lets 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.

I Just Know That Young People Suffer, And I Also Know Music Is One Of The Things That Help You Get Through - Music And Friends.

I Don't Think," He Insisted. "i Feel.

I've Always Had A Desire To Write Something And Capture People's Imagination Like Peter Pan Had Captured Mine.

Life Is An Adventure Of Our Own Design Intersected By Fate And A Series Of Lucky And Unlucky Accidents.

You Can't Carve Up The World. It's Not A Pie.

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.

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.

I Love Being Alive. I Like Being A Human Being.

People Say The Media Is Feeding The Public's Hunger For Celebrity News, But That's The Drug Pusher's Mentality. I Don't Think Anybody Would Be Pining For News About Angelina Jolie's Babies If It Weren't Being Given To Them In The First Place.

I Started Going To Bible School Really Early In Life. Being Raised A Jehovah's Witness, I Had To Read The Bible Over And Over. These Stories Were So Horrifying And Really Difficult To Reconcile. For Me, Noah Wasn't The Story Of The Graham Cracker Box With The Little Animals It Was Horrifying. I Would Ask The Same Questions As A Child. "well, What About The Little Kids? What About The Dogs And Cats?"

I'm Pretty Moral About What I Do. If I Didn't Think I Was Worthy Of Doing Something, I Wouldn't Do It. I Ain't Gonna Waste A Bunch Of People's Time.

My Small Torrent Of Words Dissipated Into An Elaborate Sense Of Expanding And Receding. It Was My Entrance Into The Radiance Of Imagination. This Process Was Especially Magnified Within The Fevers Of Influenza, Measles, Chickenpox, And Mumps. I Got Them All And With Each I Was Privileged With A New Level Of Awareness. Lying Deep Within Myself, The Symmetry Of A Snowflake Spinning Above Me, Intensifying Through My Lids, I Seized A Most Worthy Souvenir, A Shard Of Heaven’s Kaleidoscope.

Those Were The Things On My Mind [stay Healthy, Take Care Of My Kids And Reestablish A Relationship With The People], Not Career, Money, Drugs, Sex, Alcohol Or Fun. Not That There's Anything Wrong With Any Of Those Things, But They Aren't In The Film [dream Of Life], Because That Wasn't My Life At The Time.

Truthfully, I Don't Really Think Of Myself As A Photographer. I Don't Have All The Disciplines And Knowledge Of A Person Who's Spent Their Life Devoted To Photography.

As An Artist, I Used To Think That My Responsibility Was To Do Good Work. But I Had To Learn From The 70s On That Being A Public Figure Presents Another Aspect Of Responsibility.

My Father Came A Couple Of Times, But He Always Blamed His Hearing Loss On My Loud Amplifiers. So He Didn't Come Anymore, But I Had His Support.

To Be An Artist — Actually, To Be A Human Being In These Times — It’s All Difficult. … What Matters Is To Know What You Want And Pursue It.

I Worked For Hillary [clinton] When I Was Young - When She Was Running For The Senate. I Was Fundraising And Things, I See All Of These People As Political In A Way That Isn't Humanistic. I'm Just Watching And Hoping That Someone Is Going To Distinguish Himself Or Herself As Comprehending What We Need.

The Film [dream Of Life] Is The Way It Is Because It Was The Rhythm Of My Life, And Also Because The Director And The Editor Are Both Gifted And Both Fine Human Beings.

I Never Really Wanted To Be A Singer - Not With Any Longevity. But I Always Wanted To Be A Writer.

If I Have Any Regrets, I Could Say That I'm Sorry I Wasn't A Better Writer Or A Better Singer.

Jesus Died For Somebody's Sins But Not Mine.

I Got Over The Loss Of His Desk And Chair, But Never The Desire To Produce A String Of Words More Precious Than The Emeralds Of Cortés.

Since I Was A Child, I Hated Having To Deal With My Hair. I Hated Having To Change My Clothes. As A Kid, I Had A Sailor Shirt And The Same Old Corduroy Pants, And That's What I Wanted To Wear Everyday.

I Was So Used To Doing Art That My Fingers Were Like Albino Spiders. So It Was Just Natural For Me To Go To A Typewriter And Write Poetry.

I Was So Horny In School It Felt Like My Body Was Filled With Electricity. I Felt Like I Had Neon Bones Or Something.

As A Child I Was Such An Intense Daydreamer; I Could Be So Gone That I Had To Be Smacked To Come Back. They Were Really Worried That I Had Some Kind Of Catatonia Or Something Because I Would Go So Far Out. Because All I Wanted To Do Was Talk To God As A Child.

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.

We Tried Not To Age, But Time Had Its Rage.

My Father Was Always Talking About God, And I Idolized My Father, So I'd Spend Hours Trying To Have Mental Telepathy With God.

Punk Rock Is Just Another Word For Freedom.

With The Death Of Robert Mapplethorpe, I Had Lost My Main Collaborator In Taking Photographs. So I Didn't Know Who To Work With.

It's Steven's [sebring] View Of What He Saw In Traveling And Working With Me. But On Another Scale, I Think The Film [dream Of Life] Is Very Humanistic: It Touches On Motherhood, Death, Birth, Art, Laundry, Anger Against The Bush Administration... While I Don't Think It's The Kind Of Film Where One Goes To Find Some Of The Darker, Edgier Aspects Of Life, The Film Was Born Of Grief.

In Any Performance, You're On Stage For Two Hours, And There's 40 Seconds Or Maybe A Whole Five Minutes Where You Feel Like The Whole Universe Is In Place, And You've Gone Even Beyond The Universe That You Know.

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 Struggled.

New York Is The Thing That Seduced Me.

I Realize That People Need Something To Believe In.

I Think The Film [dream Of Life] Is Life-affirming.

I Longed To Read Everything I Possibly Could, And The Things I Read In Turn Produced New Yearnings.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

John Harvey Kellogg

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