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I Don't Wanna Be Equal With Anybody. I Wanna Be Above Equal. I Don't Think Most People Are Equal To Me. I'd Like To Communicate With Everybody; I'd Like To Do Something Universal, I'd Like To Have The Hit Record Of The World. But That's Not The Same As Being Equal.

-Patti Smith

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I Don't Wanna Be

Patti Smith

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I Don't Wanna Be Equal With Anybody. I Wanna Be Above Equal. I Don't Think Most People Are Equal To Me. I'd Like To Communicate With Everybody; I'd Like To Do Something Universal, I'd Like To Have The Hit Record Of The World. But That's Not The Same As Being Equal.

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You Can't Make A Mistake When You Improvise.

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In Fact, I Thought My Calling Was To Be A Painter.

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

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...heroine: The Artist, The Premier Mistress Writhering In A Garden Graced W/highly Polished Blades Of Grass... Release (ethiopium) Is The Drug...an Animal Howl Says It All...notes Pour Into The Caste Of Freedom...the Freedom To Be Intense...to Defy Social Order And Break The Slow Kill Monotony Of Censorship. To Break From The Long Bonds Of Servitude-ruthless Adoration Of The Celestial Shepherd. Let Us Celebrate Our Own Flesh-to Embrace Not Ones Race Mais The Marathon-to Never Let Go Of The Fiery Sadness Called Desire.

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.

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No One Expected Me. Everything Awaited Me.

I Didn't Write About Aspects Of My Public Life Because That's A Small Part Of My Life.

Robert Was Concerned With How To Make The Photograph, And I With How To Be The Photograph.

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.

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

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

We Wanted, It Seemed, What We Already Had, A Lover And A Friend To Create With, Side By Side. To Be Loyal, Yet Be Free.

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.

When You Do Controversial Work, You're Going To Upset A Certain Amount Of People.

I Have Vague Memories, Like Impressions On Glass Plates.

I Could Have A Job As A Teacher Because I Like Talking In Front Of People.

Committing Great Work Does Not Necessarily Feed You.

I Don't Think The Area Of Jerusalem Should Be Part Of A Jewish State; It Belongs To All People, To Christians And Muslims And The Jewish People.

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.

Steven [sebring] Was Documenting Me As A Widow With Two Children, Going From 50 To 60 Years Old. My Focus, During That Time, Was To Rediscover Myself, Stay Healthy, Take Care Of My Kids And Reestablish A Relationship With The People.

I Was A Lower Middle-class Kid. My Family Had No Money. There Was No Room In Our Small House Where There Were Already Four Kids, Including Myself, Living.

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 Don't Think Anything Can Prepare You For One's Losses.

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.

When I Was A Teenager, I Had Trouble Getting A Boyfriend, So I Imagined Arthur Rimbaud Or Bob Dylan As My Boyfriend.

I Find It Painful When I'm Without Anything. But I Work In Multiple Fields. If I Can't Write, I Find Myself Taking Photographs. I Can Go On The Road And Perform. But The Most Important Thing For Me Is Writing, And When I Hit Those Walls, It's Painful.

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.

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.

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.

If Someone Didn't Want To Be Filmed, Or My Children Said, "don't Film Me Anymore," [steven Sebring] Didn't Try To Sneak A Shot Or Cajole Them; He Just Respected Their Wishes.

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

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.

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.

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

...my Camera Is My Friend, And I Take It Everywhere.

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.

Sometimes You Write Passages That Don't Need To Be Rewritten. Performance Is That For Me. Improvisation, Things That Happen In The Moment, Are Sometimes Wonderful, Or Wonderful As A Moment To Be Shared Between Performer And People, But That's It. There Might Be A Strong Bond Between You And The People, A Transformative Night, But As A Live Record It Might Not Translate.

The Film [dream Of Life] Doesn't Hide Anything, Except Maybe Moments Of Sorrow Or Darkness That Belonged To Me.

Well, I'm Not One Of Those People Who Needs The Limelight. If I'm Performing, That's What I'm Doing. If I'm Not, I Don't Long For It. I Don't Need The Approval Of An Audience, Or Applause.

You Don't Want To Od On Improvisation.

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.

The New Artists Coming Through Were Very Materialistic And Hollywood, Not So Engaged In Communication.

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

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 About Doing Good Work. Protect Your Work And If You Build A Good Name, Eventually That Name Will Be Its Own Currency. Life Is Like A Roller Coaster Ride, It Is Never Going To Be Perfect. It Is Going To Have Perfect Moments And Rough Spots, But It’s All Worth It.

That Whole Thing About Masturbating. Most Girls, I Guess Nobody Has To Tell Them, They Just Figure It Out. I Had To Be Told. Some Girl Actually Had To Show Me A Hairbrush And Demonstrate Exactly What To Do. I Just Never Figured That Stuff Out Naturally.

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I Always Wear The Same Thing Onstage.

Paths That Cross Will Cross Again

My Parents Were Very Well Read. They Were Both New Englanders, Not Highly Educated, But They Had A Sophisticated... They Were Both Very Humanistic, And They Were Sophisticated Readers.

I've Lost Many, Many Friends Through Natural Causes, Through Alcohol, Through Drugs, Through Aids. And Every Time I Lose A Friend Or A Loved One, It Reminds Me How Great Life Is.

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

Often The Simplest Song Is The Hardest To Write.

I Watch A Lot Of Crime Shows. The Head Investigator Always Said To The Crime Solver, "what Do You Say?" And Inevitably The Other Has To Say Something Like, "well I'm Thinking He Was Shot In The Neck With A Certain Gun And He Seemed To Be Running." The Solver Has To Picture What He's Seeing First, And Then Express His Own Observations. The Writer Does The Same.

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.

Should I Pursue A Path So Twisted? Should I Crawl Defeated And Gifted?

Unanswered Questions

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

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.

If You Over-plan, You Close The Door On Possibilities.

I Think That There Is An Air Of Experience And Aesthetic Sophistication That Weaves In With The Amateur Aspects Of The Film [dream Of Life]; It Gives The Film A Certain Elegance.

I Reflected On The Fact That No Matter How Good I Aspired To Be, I Was Never Going To Achieve Perfection

I Walk Alone, Assaulted It Seems, By Tears From Heaven.

Those Who Have Suffered Understand Suffering And Therefore Extend Their Hand.

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

New York Has Closed Itself Off To The Young And The Struggling. But There Are Other Cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City Has Been Taken Away From You. So My Advice Is: Find A New City.

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.

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.

I Know I'm A Strong Performer. I'm Not An Evolved Musician.

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

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.

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