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Some Of Us Are Born Rebellious. Like Jean Genet Or Arthur Rimbaud, I Roam These Mean Streets Like A Villain, A Vagabond, An Outcast, Scavenging For The Scraps That May Perchance Plummet Off Humanity's Dirty Plates, Though Often Sometimes Taking A Cab To A Restaurant Is More Convenient.

-Patti Smith

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Some Of Us Are

Patti Smith

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Some Of Us Are Born Rebellious. Like Jean Genet Or Arthur Rimbaud, I Roam These Mean Streets Like A Villain, A Vagabond, An Outcast, Scavenging For The Scraps That May Perchance Plummet Off Humanity's Dirty Plates, Though Often Sometimes Taking A Cab To A Restaurant Is More Convenient.

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

I Always Wear The Same Thing Onstage.

Pissing In A River, Watching It Rise.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

New York Is The Thing That Seduced Me.

John Coltrane, He Talks To God. He Starts Playing His Solo, He Might Play For 14 Minutes. For 14 Minutes, It Seems Like He's Talking To God, But He Always Takes A Hold Of The Melody.

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.

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

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.

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

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

No One Expected Me. Everything Awaited Me.

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

Why Do People Want To Know Exactly Who I Am? Am I A Poet? Am I This Or That? I've Always Made People Wary. First They Called Me A Rock Poet. Then I Was A Poet That Dabbled In Rock. Then I Was A Rock Person Who Dabbled In Art.

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

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

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.

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

We Imagined Ourselves As The Sons Of Liberty With A Mission To Preserve, Protect, And Project The Revolutionary Spirit Of Rock And Roll. We Feared That The Music Which Had Given Us Sustenance Was In Danger Of Spiritual Starvation. We Feared It Losing Its Sense Of Purpose, We Feared It Falling Into Fattened Hands, We Feared It Floundering In A Mire Of Spectacle, Finance, And Vapid Technical Complexity.

All I've Ever Wanted To Do Was Create Freedom.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I Hated The Soup And Felt Little For The Can.

I Like Making Records Right Now 'cause I Can Express Myself That Way In A Very Immediate, Physical Sense. You Can Always Write A Book, But You Can't Always Do A Rock 'n' Roll Record That's Gonna Work.

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

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.

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

Usually When I Go To A Place For The First Time, Unless There's Something Historical Or Spectacular That Nature Has To Offer, The First Thing I Like To Do Is See What's On The Minds Of The People.

I'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?"

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 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.

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.

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

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

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've Lost Many, Many Friends Through Natural Causes, Through Alcohol, Through Drugs, Through Aids. And Every Time I Lose A Friend Or A Loved One, It Reminds Me How Great Life Is.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

What Helps Me Is Watching Other People Negotiate Loss. I Think About How We Dropped A Bomb On People In Hiroshima And 150,000 People Were Killed In One Night. Those People Had To Mourn And They Had To Rebuild Their City Right Away.

Your Soul Was Like A Network Of Spittle.

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

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

Sometimes You're Doing Really Well, Then, After Three Or Four Years, Everything Inexplicably Crashes Like A House Of Cards And You Have To Rebuild It. It's Not Like You Get To A Point Where You're All Right For The Rest Of Your Life.

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.

The Film [dream Of Life] Is Not Really An Amateur Work, Despite The Fact That None Of Us Have Ever Done Anything Like This Before; Aesthetically, None Of Us Are Amateurs.

An Artist Wears His Work In Place Of Wounds.

I Have Loved Books All My Life. There Is Nothing More Beautiful In Our Material World Than The Book.

Jesus Died For Somebody's Sins But Not Mine.

Hail Brother, The Distant Thunder Is Nothing But Hearts Beating As One.

I Don't Think," He Insisted. "i Feel.

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.

I'm A Worker. I Do The Work To Communicate, And I Want People To Embrace It, And When They Do I'm Happy.

I 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.

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

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.

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

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

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'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 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.

If You Over-plan, You Close The Door On Possibilities.

Punk Rock Is Just Another Word For Freedom.

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.

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

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.

Paths That Cross Will Cross Again

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

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

I Have Vague Memories, Like Impressions On Glass Plates.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Poetry Is A Solitary Process. One Does Not Write Poetry For The Masses. Poetry Is A Self-involved, Lofty Pursuit. Songs Are For The People. When I'm Writing A Song, I Imagine Performing It. I Imagine Giving It. It's A Different Aspect Of Communication. It's For The People.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

Ultimately, I Want To Make Everyone Horny.

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.

Grief Isn't All Tears.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

Horses Pretty Much Broke As A Record In England.

I Always Thought My Father [influenced Me Most] Because He Was So Well Read, I Tried To Model Myself On Him, But Really As I Go Through Life I Realise It Was My Mother Who Gave Me The Most Valuable Instructions. I Didn't Understand Or Accept It At The Time. She Taught Me To Read And To Pray - Two Things That Have Really Stayed With Me.

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

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.

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.

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

Hey Sister, You're Just Moving Too Fast, You're Screwing Up The Quota.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

My Mother And Father Had So Many Ups And Downs And Stayed With Each Other And Helped Each Other. My Mother Took In Ironing And She Was A Waitress. My Father Was Working In The Factory And He Did People's Tax Returns.

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.

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.

Sometimes [people] Seem To Think I Came Out Of The Womb, You Know, Cursing, With An Electric Guitar.

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.

Everybody's Got To Reclaim These Thingspoetry, Rock'n'roll, Political Activismand It's Got To Be Done Over And Over Again. It's Like Eating: You Can't Say,'oh, I Ate Yesterday'.you Have To Eat Again.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

My Introduction To Photography And A Lot Of How I Developed Aesthetically Was Through '50s And Early-'60s Fashion Magazines Like Harper's Bazaar And Vogue.

I 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.

A Lullaby Should Be Timeless Because It's A Timeless Concept - The Birth Of The Child.

You Don't Want To Od On Improvisation.

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

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.

We Wanted, It Seemed, What We Already Had, A Lover And A Friend To Create With, Side By Side. To Be Loyal, Yet Be Free.

I Would Always Say To Anyone, You Make Choices That Are Important To You. Don't Allow Yourself To Be Exploited By Something As Fleeting As Fame And Fortune. If You're Presenting Yourself In A Way That Important To You In Communicating Your Vision, Then So Be It. No One Should Allow Themselves To Be Exploited Ever.

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

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 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.

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.

There's Nothing Cool About Being Self-destructive.

Self Destructive

Self Destructive Behavior

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

...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.

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

[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 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.

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

Somehow I Started Introducing Writing Into My Drawings, And After A Time, The Language Took Over And I Started Getting Very Involved With The Handwriting And Then The Look Of The Handwriting.

My 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 Personally Am Not Interested In People Trying To Pigeonhole Me.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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 Was Real Religious When I Was Young. I Wanted To Be A Missionary.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Committing Great Work Does Not Necessarily Feed You.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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