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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.

-Patti Smith

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I Think It's Important

Patti Smith

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Unanswered Questions

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

The Film [dream Of Life] Looks At A Time In My Life.

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.

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

Often The Simplest Song Is The Hardest To Write.

Who Can Know The Heart Of Youth But Youth Itself?

Love Is An Angel Disguised As Lust.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

An Artist Wears His Work In Place Of Wounds.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Never Let Go Of That Fiery Sadness Called Desire.

We Have To Believe, As Creators - Just Like A Doctor Doing Heart Surgery Has To Believe That He Can Save That Person's Life. You Have To Believe That Your Pursuit Is Not Just A Noble Pursuit, But A Necessary And Inborn Pursuit To Uncover Something.

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

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.

The Only Way I Can Lose My Mind In Bed Is To Destroy Myself In A Fantasy.

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

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.

Where Does It All Lead? What Will Become Of Us? These Were Our Young Questions, And Young Answers Were Revealed. It Leads To Each Other. We Become Ourselves.

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.

You Don't Want To Od On Improvisation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Know From An Early Age That I'm Very Comfortable In Front Of People. When I Was A Young Girl, I'd Love Giving Book Reports.

Punk Rock Is Just Another Word For Freedom.

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.

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'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 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.

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

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

I Don't Think The Average American Understands What Patriotism Truthfully Is. That's Why When I Attack Our Country Or Attack The Government, It's Sometimes Looked At As Unpatriotic. It's Not.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I Wasn't Thinking So Much Of Music. I Wasnt Thinking So Much Of Perfection Or Stardom Or Any Of That Stuff.

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

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

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

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 Wasn't A Stranger To Hard Times. I Used To Read The Bible - Well, I Still Do, But When I Was Young I Read The Bible Quite A Bit.

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

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

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

Wasting My Time

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 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.

Make Your Interactions With People Transformational, Not Just Transactional.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

People Like Beauty And Purity. They Pretend That's What It's All About.

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

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

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

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

No One Knows How Powerful Technology Is.

Pissing In A River, Watching It Rise.

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

Hopefully If You Create Something Fine, People Will Relate To It, So You're Communicating With People, And You're Not In A Void. On The Other Hand, Because You're Always Creating And Transforming, Art Always Separates You - Always.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

A Writer, Or Any Artist, Can’t Expect To Be Embraced By The People [but] You Just Keep Doing Your Work - Because You Have To, Because It’s Your Calling.

One Of My Great Goals When I First Started Taking Photographs Or Showing Them Publicly Is That People Might Want One For Over Their Desk. That's My Goal.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Ultimately, I Want To Make Everyone Horny.

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

We All Make Choices. Believe Me, I Would Like To Write The Hit Of The World. It's Not Like I Have Any Desire To Be In The Shadows. My Vision Isn't Marketing. Some People Want To Sell 6 Million Albums. There's Nothing Wrong With That. It's Just Not What I Do. I'd Rather Look At A Piece Of Work And Say It's Great Rather Than It's Successful.

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.

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

Toyland, Toyland . . . Once You Pass Its Portals You May Never Return Again.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

...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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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 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 Don't Consider Writing A Quiet, Closet Act. I Consider It A Real Physical Act. When I'm Home Writing On The Typewriter, I Go Crazy. I Move Like A Monkey. I've Wet Myself, I've Come In My Pants Writing.

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.

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

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.

Freedom Is...the Right To Write The Wrong Words.

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.

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.

Everything Distracted Me, But Most Of All Myself.

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.

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

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'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.

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

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.

The Bible Is Very Resonant. It Has Everything, Creation, Betrayal, Lust, Poetry, Prophecy, Sacrifice. All Great Things Are In The Bible And All Great Writers Have Drawn From It And More Than People Realise, Whether Shakespeare, Herman Melville Or Bob Dylan. Of Course There Are Stories That Are Still Relevant And Inspiring; Lessons That Need To Be Taught Over And Over Again. And They Give People Hope.

What Is The Impulse That Drove To Direct? To Me, It Seems So Immense. Just Having A Rock 'n' Roll Band, Or To Go From The Solitude Of Writing And To Having To Collaborate, Is Almost Schizophrenic.

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

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

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.

New Generations Have Unprecedented Power To Make Great Changes. Take The Music Business For Example. The New Generations Have Toppled The Music Industry By File Sharing, Downloading, And Myspace. Rock 'n' Roll Belongs To The People.

I Wish I Could Just Project Everything On The Paper.

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?

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

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.

Blessedness Is Within Us All.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Have Vague Memories, Like Impressions On Glass Plates.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

Writing Is Not Some Quiet, Closet Act.

Christianity Made Us Think There's One Heaven.

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.

No One Expected Me. Everything Awaited Me.

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.

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.

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Jacqueline Bisset

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