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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?

-Patti Smith

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In My Low Periods,

Patti Smith

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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?

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

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Talking To God And Coming Back Because That's What We Have To Do. That's Your Responsibility As A Director, As An Artist, As A Performer. Your Responsibility Is Back Again To Your People.

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

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

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.

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

I Didn't Begin My Life In 1975 With 'horses.' I Recorded 'horses' In 1975, But Was Drawing In Paris In 1969.

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 Really Don't Want Somebody Writing Something Positive About Me If They Don't Believe In It. I'd Rather Somebody Write Something Real Mean. I Like Reading Bad Stuff, It Gets Me Excited. In Fact, The Only Reviews I Keep Are The Bad Ones 'cause I Think They're The Cool Ones.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Art Is By Nature Optimistic. Art Is Optimistic Because It Is Alive.

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

I 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.

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.

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.

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

I Always Enjoyed Doing Transgender Songs.

People Need Space To Air Out Their Thoughts, To Have A Sense Of Themselves - Unfettered By Anything.

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.

What Is The Soul? What Color Is It? I Suspected My Soul, Being Mischievous, Might Slip Away While I Was Dreaming And Fail To Return. I Did My Best Not To Fall Asleep, To Keep It Inside Of Me Where It Belonged.

I'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.

Your Soul Was Like A Network Of Spittle.

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.

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.

My Public Life Was So Demanding That I Wasn't Doing The Things That I Deemed The Most Important.

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.

Ultimately, We Are Not Seeking Others To Bow To, But To Reinforce Our Individual Natures, To Help Us Suffer Our Own Choices, To Guide Us On Our Own Particular Journeys.

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

Christianity Made Us Think There's One Heaven.

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

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

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 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.

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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.

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

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'd Never Had People Drive Me Around, And Then All Of A Sudden, If A Car Didn't Come, I'd Say, "where's My Car?"

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The Whole Process Of Working With Steven [sebring] And Being Filmed By Him Helped Me Psychologically To Get My Feet Back On The Ground.

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

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

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

I 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.

Pissing In A River, Watching It Rise.

I Don't Know Why, The Very First Word On My Very First Record Is 'jesus.' I Still Invoke Him As An Entity To Reckon With.

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

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

Who Can Know The Heart Of Youth But Youth Itself?

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

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

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