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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.

-Patti Smith

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My Mother Had No

Patti Smith

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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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.

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 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.

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

Got To Lose Control Before You Take Control.

Horses Pretty Much Broke As A Record In England.

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.

I Love My Little Overgrown Yard. And My House Is Wonderful. It's Everything That I Need.

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.

Never Let Go Of That Fiery Sadness Called Desire.

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

Writing Is Not Some Quiet, Closet Act.

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

I Wasn't Writing, I Wasn't Drawing, And Personality-wise, I Was Just Completely Arrogant. I'm Not Trying To Be Overly Apologetic For My Behavior - I Wasn't Evil. The Lifestyle I Had Was One That Lent Itself To Becoming More And More Self-involved.

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.

[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.

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

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

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.

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

I Really Feel Concerned About Young People Within Our Present Culture. Our Present Culture, We Have To Change. Change Is Inevitable And I Wasn't Raised In Our Present Culture But It Has Great Pressure That As A Young Person I Never Had. Material Pressure, Social Pressure, Visual Pressure, How You Look, And I Just Try To Appeal To Young People To Think For Themselves, To Be Their Own Person, And To Ask Questions And Also Be Very Attentive To Our Planet And Our Environment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Want To Be Around A Really Long Time. I Want To Be A Thorn In The Side Of Everything As Long As Possible.

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

I Learned A Lot From Arthur Rimbaud. People Talk About How He Wanted To Be A Seer And Do That Through The Derangement Of The Senses. What They Forget Was That He Also Advocated, Sternly And Austerely, That One Must Be Able To Go Through All That - And Then Articulate It.

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

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I Always 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.

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

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

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

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I Started Resenting How Much Art Robs From Life. I'd Go To A Party And I Couldn't Enjoy Myself, Even Sexually. All I Could Think Was How I Was Going To Reinvent The Experience Into A Piece Of Art.

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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.

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

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 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 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.

Often The Simplest Song Is The Hardest To Write.

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

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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?

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.

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.

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

Wasting My Time

The Two Things That Constantly Inspired Me Were Books And Travel.

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

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

Make Your Interactions With People Transformational, Not Just Transactional.

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.

I Always Enjoyed Doing Transgender Songs.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

No One Expected Me. Everything Awaited Me.

We Believe We Will Raise The Sky, We Got To Fly Over The Land, Over The Sea. Fate Unwinds And If We Die, Souls Arise. God, Do Not Seize Me Please.

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

My Mother Answers All My Fan Mail.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Punk Rock Is Just Another Word For Freedom.

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

I'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.

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.

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

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.

Will You Pretend You're My Boyfriend?

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

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

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.

Americans Just Don't Know What Being A Movie Star's All About.

Steven's [sebring] Presence Was Not Threatening; He Told Me That If I Never Wanted The Footage To Be Seen By Anyone, He Would Give It To Me. So I Had Nothing To Lose And Everything To Gain, And What I Gained Was His Supportive Energy And The Supportive Energy Of His Wife, Who Was Sometimes The One Schlepping The Equipment Or Doing The Sound.

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

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

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.

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.

Even As A Child, I Knew What I Didn't Want. I Didn't Want To Wear Red Lipstick.

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.

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 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 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'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.

An Artist Is Somebody Who Enters Into Competition With God.

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

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

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.

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

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.

I Had No Proof That I Had The Stuff To Be An Artist, Though I Hungered To Be One.

Remember, We Are Mortal, But Poetry Is Not.

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

I've Said This Over And Over, But I'll Say It A Million More Times - I'm Concerned More About The Death Of A Bee Than I Am About Terrorism. Because We're Losing Hives And Bees By The Millions Because Of Such Strong Pesticides.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

Pissing In A River, Watching It Rise.

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 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 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.

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.

I've Always Had A Desire To Write Something And Capture People's Imagination Like Peter Pan Had Captured Mine.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

I Had This Idea That The Coolest Thing That Could Happen To You Was Talking With God.

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

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

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.

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'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.

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

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

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

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

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 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 Believe We All Have A Unique Journey, Whether Its A Journey Of Pure Energy, If There's Any Intelligence Within The Journey. But I Think Each Of Us Have Our Own Way Of Dissipating Or Entering A New Field.

Blessedness Is Within Us All.

I Know Fashion Is A Material Thing, But We Live In A Material World And I Love Clothes.

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