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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

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I'm From South Jersey:

Patti Smith

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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.

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

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

There's Nothing Cool About Being Self-destructive.

Self Destructive

Self Destructive Behavior

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Knew If I Lived Long Enough I Would Be Poet Laureate Of Something.

Desire Is Hunger Is The Fire I Breathe, Love Is A Banquet On Which We Feed.

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 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.

An Artist Is Somebody Who Enters Into Competition With God.

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.

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 Was Horny, But I Was Innocent 'cause I Was A Real-late Bloomer And Not Particularly Attractive. In Fact, Homely.

In Art And Dream May You Proceed With Abandon. In Life May You Proceed With Balance And Stealth.

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

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?"

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

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.

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.

People Have The Power To Redeem The Work Of Fools.

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.

I'm Very Comfortable With Being A Female Now But When I Was A Little Kid I Only Wanted To Be A Boy. I Didn't Want To Be A Girl. I Didn't Feel Like A Man Inside... Being A Boy Was Just Cooler.

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

It Will Not Fall Away. Man Cannot Judge It. For Art Sings Of God, And Ultimately Belongs To Him.

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.

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

What I Wanted To Do In Rock'n'roll Was Merge Poetry With Sonic Scapes, And The Two People Who Had Contributed So Much To That Were Jimi Hendrix And Jim Morrison.

I Immersed Myself In Books And Rock 'n' Roll, The Adolescent Salvation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm A Total Failure At Housewifery. I Always Have Been, 'cause I Daydream Too Much. If I Start Doing The Dishes At One In The Afternoon, I'll Still Be There At Six In The Evening.

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.

Deep In My Heart How The Presence Of You Shines, In A Light To Last A Whole Life Through.

We're A Culture More Than Ever That Wants Proof Of Everything, We Want Things Fast, And Someone Sends You An Email, You Want To Answer In Five Minutes. We Have To Allow Ourselves Nothingness, In Our Relationships Too.

I've Never Felt Grounded Because Of My Ancestry Or My Gender. I Think Until Women Get Away From That They're Not Going To Be Great Writers.

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.

In 1974, When I Started Working With The Material That Became Horses, A Lot Of Our Great Voices Had Died. We'd Lost Jimi Hendrix And Jim Morrison And Janis Joplin, And People Like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King And Malcolm X.

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.

Paths That Cross Will Cross Again

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.

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.

Rock & Roll Is Like A Painting. Can Great Paintings Still Be Done? It Depends On Who Holds The Brush.

I Started Thinking What Could Happen With My Art And I Realized That The Biggest Thing That Could Is That It Winds Up In A Museum. It's Like Finding A Rare Animal And Putting It In The Zoo.

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

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

Finally, By The Sea, Where God Is Everywhere, I Gradually Calmed.

The People Have The Power To Redeem The Work Of Fools. Upon The Meek The Graces Shower, It's Decreed The People Rule.

Committing Great Work Does Not Necessarily Feed You.

We Were As Hansel And Gretel And We Ventured Out Into The Black Forest Of The World.

Maybe I'll Be 48 And Die In The Gutter In Paris.

The Truth Is, No Matter How Modest Steven [sebring] Is, He Was Obsessed With The Outcome Of The Film [dream Of Life]. Every Single Frame Was Important To Him.

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.

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

The Thing I've Always Liked About Performing Is That I Decide What I Want To Wear, Whether I Want To Comb My Hair.

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

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.

My Mission Is To Communicate, To Wake People Up, To Give Them My Energy And Accept Theirs. We're All In It Together, And I Respond Emotionally As A Worker, A Mother, An Artist, And A Human Being With A Voice. We All Have A Voice. We Have The Responsibility To Exercise It, To Use It.

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.

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.

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

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] Looks At A Time In My Life.

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

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.

...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.

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.

I've Always Thrived On The Encouragement Of Others.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

I'm Old-fashioned. I Think William Blake And People In The Renaissance People Were Multi. Look At Da Vinci, He Was Involved In Science; And Michelangelo Was Dabbling In Poetry. Both Of Them Were Painters And Sculptors But They Also Involved Themselves With Architecture. I Honestly Don't Know What Happened In The '60s And '70s. If You Sang Rock And Roll In America At That Time Or Were Involved In Expressing Yourself Through Music Like That, Then Many Thought You Couldn't Possibly Be An Artist. That Thinking Is Archaic.

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.

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

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.

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

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 Just Like Living In Certain Atmospheres. Or I Just Like People As They Are.

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

The Sea Is Greater Than Us - It Has Its Rhythm, Its Art. It Comes With Our Earliest Memory, Of Respiration, Breathing In And Out.

People Say Hello To Me. I Mean, Sometimes The Sanitation Truck Goes By And Says, Hey Patti.

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.

I Hated The Soup And Felt Little For The Can.

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.

The Issue Of Gender Was Never My Biggest Concern; My Biggest Concern Was Doing Good Work. When The Feminist Movement Really Got Going, I Wasn't An Active Part Of It Because I Was More Concerned With My Own Mental Pursuits.

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

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.

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.

There Were Days, Rainy Gray Days, When The Streets Of Brooklyn Were Worthy Of A Photograph, Every Window The Lens Of A Leica, The View Grainy And Immobile. We Gathered Our Colored Pencils And Sheets Of Paper And Drew Like Wild, Feral Children Into The Night, Until, Exhausted, We Fell Into Bed. We Lay In Each Other's Arms, Still Awkward But Happy, Exchanging Breathless Kisses Into Sleep.

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.

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.

You Can't Work On That Scale Without Trust. I Learned That From Working With Robert Mapplethorpe.

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

We Learned We Wanted Too Much. We Could Only Give From The Perspective Of Who We Were And What We Had. Apart, We Were Able To See With Even Greater Clarity That We Didn’t Want To Be Without Each Other.

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.

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

Often The Simplest Song Is The Hardest To Write.

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

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.

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 Like My Time On Earth. And No Matter What Kind Of Cards I've Been Dealt, I'm Happy To Be There.

I Wanted To See Who This Yeats Person Was, And I Said To My Mother, 'i Want A Book By This Person.' And She Bought It For Me, And A Lot Of It Was Over My Head, But I Had It.

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

Wasting My Time

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.

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.

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

Will You Pretend You're My Boyfriend?

I Believe Myself To Be An Artist. That Was My Calling, To Do My Work, And What's Most Important To Me Is To Do The Best Work I Possibly Can. And That Is What Means The Most, That Is What Will Endure.

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.

People Came At Me With All Sorts Of Offers, Wanting To Make Me Into A Hard-core Cher. I Had No Desire For Any Amount Of Money To Be Reformed For Someone's Vision, Because In The End, That's What You Got: Your Clay In Someone Else's Hands.

I Came Into Music Because I Thought The Presentation Of Poetry Wasn't Vibrant Enough. So I Merged Improvised Poetry With Basic Rock Chords.

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

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.

Remember, We Are Mortal, But Poetry Is Not.

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.

I'm Not Really A Nostalgic Person.

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.

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

Outside Of Society, If You're Looking That's Where You'll Find Me.

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

It Got To The Point Where I Started Hiding Because I Didn't Want To Be Photographed. (on Living With Robert Mapplethorpe)

Obviously, I'm Not Homeless. I'm Not An Old Alcoholic. I'm Not Jumping Trains. I Just Like To Live In A Certain Way.

An Artist Wears His Work In Place Of Wounds.

Make Your Interactions With People Transformational, Not Just Transactional.

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

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.

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.

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

I Refuse To Believe That Hendrix Had The Last Possessed Hand, That Joplin Had The Last Drunken Throat, That Morrison Had The Last Enlightened Mind.

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 Have Vague Memories, Like Impressions On Glass Plates.

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

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

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.

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

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

Got To Lose Control Before You Take Control.

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.

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.

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

I Thought To Myself That He Contained A Whole Universe That I Had Yet To Know.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Idea Of Redemption Is Always Good News, Even If It Means Sacrifice Or Some Difficult Times.

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.

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

I've Always Considered Myself A Writer.

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.

Pissing In A River, Watching It Rise.

No One Expected Me. Everything Awaited Me.

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

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 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.

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.

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 Never Felt Oppressed Because Of My Gender. When I'm Writing A Poem Or Drawing, I'm Not A Female; I'm An Artist.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Who Can Know The Heart Of Youth But Youth Itself?

I Don't Think The Palestinian People Or Afghan Children Or Some Other Things I'm Concerned About Are At The Top Of Other People's Agendas - Not Right Now, When America Is Going Through Such A Recession And People Are Suffering Across The Board Financially. But I Think All That Will Change.

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.

My Father Was A Dreamy Fellow - He Read Plato And Socrates And Watched Phillies Games.

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

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

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

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