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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

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I'm Certain, As We

Patti Smith

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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.

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I Can't Judge How Another Person Does Their [music] Work. Everyone Has A Choice And The Music Industry Is Much More Open That It Was When I Was Younger. Certain Things Are Gone, Others Have Developed, But Everyone Makes Their Choices. Pop Music Has Always Been About The Mainstream And What Appeals To The Public. I Don't Feel It's My Place To Judge. I Just Look At Things As A Fan, I Like Or Or I Don't Like It.

Love Is An Angel Disguised As Lust.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Committing Great Work Does Not Necessarily Feed You.

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.

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

Angel Looks Down At Him And Says, “oh, Pretty Boy, Can't You Show Me Nothing But Surrender?

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.

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.

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

I Felt Alien My Whole Life But I Didn't Feel Alien Because Of My Gender. Other People Made Me Aware Of My Gender.

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.

An Artist Wears His Work In Place Of Wounds.

Got To Lose Control Before You Take Control.

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.

In The '50s You Had To Wear Pink Ribbons If You Were A Girl, And You Were Supposed To Become A Hairdresser Or A Secretary. I Couldn't Stomach It. Later On, When I Fell In Love With My Husband And Had Children, That's When My Mother's Earthiness Or Sense Of Femaleness Kicked In.

When I Was A Kid, I Loved Sherlock Holmes. I'm Not Interested In Crimes. I'm Interested In The Mind Of The Detective And His Process, Which To Me Is A Lot Like The Artist.

When I Perform, I Always Opt For Communication With God, And In Pursuit Of Communicating With God, You Can Enter Some Very Dangerous Territory. I Also Have Come To Realize That Total Communication With God Is Physical Death.

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'm Not Saying I Wasn't Flawed Or Amateurish. But You Can Never Say I Did Anything To Appease The Music Business.

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 Had Any Dates. I Never Really Had Any Boyfriends. I Was The Girl Who Did The Guys' Homework. I Was Really Crazy About Guys But I Was Always Like One Of The Boys. The Guys I Always Fell In Love With Were Completely Inaccessible.

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.

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

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.

The Only Parts I Like Out Of Any Of Those Women Books Is The Dirty Parts. But I Don't Think Their Dirty Parts Are Any Good, Really.

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.

All I've Ever Wanted, Since I Was A Child, Was To Do Something Wonderful.

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

It's No Secret - I Love Detective Fiction. One Of The Reasons I Love Being In London Is Because I Like To Watch All The Shows On Tv. I Watch Them All.

I Was So Unhealthy As A Child, And At Least Three Or Four Times My Parents Were Told To Get Ready, That I Would Not Make It.

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.

My Mother Loved Rock And Roll. She Loved High-energy Music.

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.

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

Trust Is Everything Between Two Artists, Or Between Subject And Artist. You Have To Have Trust Or Nothing Good Will Come Out Of It.

I Like Energy. I Like To Feel It Cracklin', I Like Sexual Energy In A Room, And I Like Tension.

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.

New York Is The Thing That Seduced Me.

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

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 Had A Handful Of Records, But When I Was 11 Years Old, I Liked Puccini As Much As Little Richard. They Both Made Sense To Me.

Sure I Destroyed My Guitar At Every Concert, But It Was Okay, Because I'd Always Get A Shiny New One The Very Next Day.

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've Lost Lots Of Men In My Life, Besides My Mother, Which Is A Whole Different Loss.

Wisdom Was A Teapot, Pouring From Above. Desolation Angels, Served It Up With Love.

I Think It's Good For People To See The Positive Beauty That Can Flower From The Deepest Grieving.

We Needed Time To Figure Out What All Of This Meant, How We Were Going To Come To Terms And Redefine What Our Love Was Called. I Learned From Him That Often Contradiction Is The Clearest Way To Truth.

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.

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

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.

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.

Grief Isn't All Tears.

Look At Obama - He Is Now [2015] Trying To Help Us Environmentally But He Should Have Done It Eight Years Ago. He's Trying To Salvage His Legacy And Trying To Do Something Good But We Needed For Him To Show Leadership From Day One.

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.

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

Words Are Just Rules And Regulations To Me.

Rules And Regulations

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.

I Always Enjoyed Doing Transgender Songs.

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

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.

I'd Try To Write My Poems In A Certain Rhythm. I Had My Rock 'n' Roll Stuff For Performing And My Denser Stuff For Writing.

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.

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

I Daydream A Lot - That's How I Get My Ideas. If I'm Sitting In A Café, I'm Not On My Phone Because I Want To Hear My Mind. I Think That Those Periods Of Small Solitude That We Are Really Losing Are So Important.

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

Good News Doesn't Necessarily Have To Be A Positive Thing. Bringing Good News Is Imparting Hope To One's Fellow Man.

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.

You're Not A Rock 'n' Roll Person Four Hours A Day Or Even When You're On Stage. It's Become The Rhythm Of Your Whole Life.

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.

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.

An Artist May Have Burdens The Ordinary Citizen Doesn't Know, But The Ordinary Citizen Has Burdens That Many Artists Never Even Touch.

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

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

As I Grew Up, One Of My Strongest Allies Has Been My Sister.

I Wanted To Go To Portland Because It's A Really Good Book Town.

When I Stopped Performing For 16 Years And Lived In Michigan And Was Married And Raising My Children, I Wrote About Four Or Five Books. I Haven't Published Them.

I Hated The Soup And Felt Little For The Can.

All The Traumas I Went Through Separating Art From Writing Don't Exist Anymore. That's Why I Love Being In Rock 'n' Roll. It's A Whole Life Thing.

My Mother Had No End Of Tragedy In Her Life. She Would Make Herself Get Up And Take A Deep Breath And Go Out And Do Laundry. Hang Up Sheets.

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

I Don't Wear Makeup. I Can't Stand Nothin' On My Face. It's A Phobia. It's Not A Platform.

As Much As I Can, As Much As I Can Afford, I Keep Ticket Prices Down. Rock 'n' Roll Was Developed As The People's Voice, The People's Art, It Was Grassroots. I Don't Believe That The People Should Be Estranged From Their Rock Stars. They're Not Kings And Queens - All Rock Stars Are Those Who Are Able To Give Back A Bit Of Culture To Other People. It's People's Heritage.

I Always Know That Everything I Do Is The Best I Could Do.

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

There's Nothing Cool About Being Self-destructive.

Self Destructive

Self Destructive Behavior

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Acknowledge All Man As Fellow Creation, But Don't Follow Him.

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.

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

Both Of Them Were Ahead Of Their Time, But They Didn't Live Long Enough To See The Time They Were Ahead Of.

We Never Had Any Children," He Said Ruefully. "our Work Was Our Children.

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.

I Studied The Bible Seriously Until I Was Young Teenager. It Was Always Part Of Our Home Education: Talking About The Bible, Arguing About The Bible, Interpreting It. So I Don't Connect Prayer Or Scriptures With Any Particular Religion So It's Not A Contradiction In My Life.

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

Social Media Could Be Very Strong In Terms Of Bringing People Together But It Also Takes Up So Much Of People's Time That I Wonder If We've Lost The Ability To Daydream.

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

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

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.

Often The Simplest Song Is The Hardest To Write.

I'm Not Really A Nostalgic Person.

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

...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.

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.

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.

My Mission Is To Communicate, To Wake People Up, Just To Give Them My Energy And Accept Theirs.

The Hand Above Turns Those Leaves Of Loves, All In All A Timeless View. Each Dream Of Life Flung From Paradise Everlasting, Ever New.

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.

Fate Is Like A Secret Friend That Helps Push You On Into Life.

Horses Pretty Much Broke As A Record In England.

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.

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

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 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 Was So Involved In My Boy-rhythms That I Never Came To Grips With The Fact That I Was A Girl. I Was Twelve Years Old When My Mother Took Me Inside And Said, "you Can't Be Outside Wrestling Without A T-shirt On." It Was A Trauma.

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.

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.

[steven Sebring] Presence Was Also Nice For My Children, Who, Having Just Lost Their Father, Quite Naturally Craved Warm Male Attention. They Gravitated To Him Right Away.

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

By The Time I Was 10 Or 11, I Was Completely Demoralized. I Thought, "i'm Done. I'm Never Going To Be A Missionary," Because My Indiscretion Column, Whether It Was Little Lies Or Stealing A Chunky Bar, Kept Me From Sainthood.

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

Wasting My Time

These Are The Times, The Times Of Our Own, These Are The Shapes The World We Formed.

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

I’m Not Much A Role Model In Terms Of Hair Care, Though.

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

I Don't Have An Image Of Myself, When I'm Walking Down The Street, Like I'm A Rock Star Or Something. I'm A Human Being, I'm A Friend, I'm A Mom, I'm A Writer, And I'm An Artist. I Do Play Electric Guitar And All Of That But In The End I'm Just A Person. I Really Don't Live Like A Rock Star, Economically Or Socially. I Still Live A Pretty Simple Life Beside The Traveling Aspect Of It.

Who Can Know The Heart Of Youth But Youth Itself?

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.

I Love To Photograph The Tools Of One's Trade: Duncan Grant's Paintbrushes, The Typewriter Of Herman Hesse, Or Even My Own Guitar, A 1957 Fender Duo-sonic.

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.

Remember, We Are Mortal, But Poetry Is Not.

I Remember When You Were Born, It Was Dawn And The Storm Settled Near My Belly. And I Rolled In The Grass And Spit Out The Gas, And I Lit A Match And The Void Went Flash. And The Sky Split And The Planets Hit, Balls Of Jade Dropped And Existence Stopped.

For Christmas Every Year, My Mother Used To Give Me Those Cheap Little Diaries That Would Tell Your Horoscope And Provide A Little Blank Slot For Each Day.

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.

First Of All, Anybody Who Has Lasted 30 And Went Through The 60's Is Really A Survivor.

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

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.

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.

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

When We Got To The Part Where We Had To Improvise An Argument In A Poetic Language, I Got Cold Feet. "i Can't Do This," I Said. "i Don't Know What To Say." "say Anything," He Said. "you Can't Make A Mistake When You Improvise." "what If I Mess It Up? What If I Screw Up The Rhythm?" "you Can't," He Said. "it's Like Drumming. If You Miss A Beat, You Create Another." In This Simple Exchange, Sam Taught Me The Secret Of Improvisation, One That I Have Accessed My Whole Life.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

The Best Thing Is To Motivate People To Do Their Own Work. I'm Not Opposed To Making Money. But I Started To Play Rock 'n' Roll To Motivate Others, To Shake Things Up, Wake People Up And To Let Other Skinny, Pimply Marginalized Weirdos Know They're Not Alone.

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

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.

He Found It Was As Easy To Hurl Beauty As Anything Else. (on Robert Mapplethorpe)

We Went Our Separate Ways, But Within Walking Distance Of One Another.

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

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.

Then I Read Little Women, And Of Course, Like A Lot Of Really Young Girls, I Was Very Taken With Jo - Jo Being The Writer And The Misfit.

My Father's Mother Was From Liverpool And She Had This Very Beautiful English China. I Only Wanted To Drink My Cocoa Out Of My Grandmother's Cup And Saucer.

So My Last Image Was As The First. A Sleeping Youth Cloaked In Light, Who Opened His Eyes With A Smile Of Recognition For Someone Who Had Never Been A Stranger.

I Think Some Of That Hopelessness Of My Generation Got Passed On To Later Generations - The Sense Of Uselessness.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Your Soul Was Like A Network Of Spittle.

People Don't Realize We Have These Built-in Seven-league Boots. The Body Can Go Anywhere. It Is Physically Capable Of Sustaining Almost Any Kind Of Abuse, Or Any Dream.

I Got My Style From A Lot Of Different People, Even My Style Of Reading, Even Johnny Carson Inspired Me.

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.

I Actually Had Another Motivation For Letting Steven [sebring] Film Us. After I'd Been Out Of The Public Eye For 16 Years, Lost My Friends And Lost My Husband, Some Of My Confidence Had Been Undermined. Steven Made The Process Of Filming Fun; I Could Pretend That We Were In Something Like Don't Look Back.

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.

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.

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

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.

For I Desired, As Youth Does, To Be Taken By The Hand And Hurled Into The World.

I'm Not Afraid Of Terrorism At All. I'm Afraid Of Loss Of Our Freedom, Loss Of Mobility, Loss Of Global Comradeship.

I Have Disciplined Myself When I'm Working. When I Discovered Art, I Realized That One Could Keep That Search Going Within Creation. But I Also Realize That In Order To Create The Art, You Have To Stay, You Can't Go Too Far.

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.

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

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

Everything Distracted Me, But Most Of All Myself.

I Like Photographing Dresses In Windows. I Actually Wore A Lot Of Dresses In The '70s. I Like Them On Other People Now.

A Good Artist's Always Got His Hand In His Zipper.

I'm More Concerned With The Work People Do Than Their Gender. When I Was Younger, I Was Pretty Judgmental. Things Had To Be A Certain Way. Now I Just Want To See The Work. It Doesn't Matter Who Does It.

I Don't Care Whether They're Men Or Women, That's Bullshit. A Good Writer Can Get Into Any Gender, Can Get Into Any Mouth. When I Write I May Be A Brando Creep, Or A Girl Laying On The Floor, Or A Japanese Tourist, Or A Slob Like Richard Speck. You Have To Be A Chameleon When You're Writing.

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 Personally Am Not Interested In People Trying To Pigeonhole Me.

The Way Our Big Cities Change Sucks. The Beauty Of Cities Was That They Were Edgy, Sometimes Even A Little Dangerous. Artists, Poets, And Activists Could Come And Unify And Create Different Kinds Of Scenes. Not Just Fashion Scenes, Scenes That Were Politically Active. Big Cities Are Getting So High-end Oriented, Business Corporate Fashion, Fashion Not In An Artistic Sense But In A Corporate Sense. For Me That Edgy Beauty Of Cities Is Lost, Wherever You Go.

I Think Guys Are More Emotional. Men Are Supposed To Be The Strong Ones, They Have Pressure On Them To Be Strong, But When It Comes To Sex Men Are Much More Emotional Than Women.

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

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 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.

Writing Is Not Some Quiet, Closet Act.

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Marvin J. Ashton

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