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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.

-Patti Smith

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The Best Thing Is

Patti Smith

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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.

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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.

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.

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 Watch A Lot Of Crime Shows. The Head Investigator Always Said To The Crime Solver, "what Do You Say?" And Inevitably The Other Has To Say Something Like, "well I'm Thinking He Was Shot In The Neck With A Certain Gun And He Seemed To Be Running." The Solver Has To Picture What He's Seeing First, And Then Express His Own Observations. The Writer Does The Same.

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

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.

Make Your Interactions With People Transformational, Not Just Transactional.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Hated The Soup And Felt Little For The Can.

Will You Pretend You're My Boyfriend?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

We Go Through Life. We Shed Our Skins. We Become Ourselves.

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

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

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'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.

I Think Guys Are More Emotional. Men Are Supposed To Be The Strong Ones, They Have Pressure On Them To Be Strong, But When It Comes To Sex Men Are Much More Emotional Than Women.

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.

Blessedness Is Within Us All.

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.

Horses Pretty Much Broke As A Record In England.

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

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.

For Life Is The Best Thing We Have In This Existence. And If We Should Desire To Believe In Something, It Should Be A Beacon Within. This Beacon Being The Sun, Sea, And Sky, Our Children, Our Work, Our Companions And, Most Simply Put, The Embodiment Of Love.

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

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.

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.

...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.

An Artist May Have Burdens The Ordinary Citizen Doesn't Know, But The Ordinary Citizen Has Burdens That Many Artists Never Even Touch.

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.

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.

By The Time I Was 10 Or 11, I Was Completely Demoralized. I Thought, "i'm Done. I'm Never Going To Be A Missionary," Because My Indiscretion Column, Whether It Was Little Lies Or Stealing A Chunky Bar, Kept Me From Sainthood.

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.

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

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

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

Everything Distracted Me, But Most Of All Myself.

All I've Ever Wanted To Do Was Create 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.

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'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.

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.

When I Stopped Performing For 16 Years And Lived In Michigan And Was Married And Raising My Children, I Wrote About Four Or Five Books. I Haven't Published Them.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Was Always Trying To Pick Guys Up. I'd Ask Guys Out And Stuff Like That. I Had No Pride. I Was The Biggest Lurch At Dances, Waiting For The Ladies' Choice. I'd Lunge At My Prey Like A Baby Wolf.

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

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

An Artist Is Somebody Who Enters Into Competition With God.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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 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 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.

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

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

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

Artists Are Traditionally Resistant To Labels.

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

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

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

We Needed Time To Figure Out What All Of This Meant, How We Were Going To Come To Terms And Redefine What Our Love Was Called. I Learned From Him That Often Contradiction Is The Clearest Way To Truth.

After Writing All Day I Go For A Walk And See A Piece Of Architecture I Want To Photograph And I Have To Take A Picture And Later A Poem Comes In My Mind.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Wrote Every Day. I Don't Think I Could Have Written Just Kids Had I Not Spent All Of The 80s Developing My Craft As A Writer.

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 Here Right Now And I Want Now To Be The Greatest Time.

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 Always Wrote Like Rock 'n' Roll. And I Always Listen To Rock 'n' Roll As Poetry.

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

I Have Vague Memories, Like Impressions On Glass Plates.

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

The Artist Seeks Contact With His Intuitive Sense Of The Gods, But In Order To Create His Work, He Cannot Stay In This Seductive And Incorporeal Realm. He Must Return To The Material World In Order To Do His Work. It's The Artist's Responsibility To Balance Mystical Communication And The Labor Of Creation.

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.

When I Was A Teenager, I Had Trouble Getting A Boyfriend, So I Imagined Arthur Rimbaud Or Bob Dylan As My Boyfriend.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

What I've Always Tried To Do Is To Express The Highest Point Of Me, And Rock 'n' Roll Is The First And The Most Open Form Created By Our Generation. The Cool Thing About It Is That You Get The Power, You Get The Rhythm; You Can Be Taken Over Sexually, You Can Be Taken Over Cerebrally; It's Great To Look At - It's A Package Deal.

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

Jesus Died For Somebody's Sins But Not Mine.

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

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.

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 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.

If I'm Really Working On Something, Writing Or Painting Or Really Concentrating, I Don't Even Think About Brushing My Hair.

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

Lets Just Say That I Think Any Person Who Aspires, Presumes, Or Feels The Calling To Be An Artist Has A Built-in Sense Of Duty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

New York Has Closed Itself Off To The Young And The Struggling. But There Are Other Cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City Has Been Taken Away From You. So My Advice Is: Find A New City.

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

Your Soul Was Like A Network Of Spittle.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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 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.

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

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'm Not Really A Nostalgic Person.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

America Is Run By Corporations, It Is Run By Banks And Wall Street. That's Why We Can't Get Guns Under Control. It's Because All These Lobbyists Don't Want Gun Control, They Don't Want Us To Have Strong Environmental Safety Guards. Young People Can Become Aware Of That And They Are The Most Powerful Lobby. With A Click Of A Text, You Can Have Millions Of People Voting For One Person.

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

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

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 Can't Bear Working With A Click Track, We're Not Click Track People. But For "mercy Is ..." We All Got In One Mind Because The Song Is Delicate; It's Not A Song That Showcases A Vocal Or Some Virtuoso.

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

Ultimately, I Want To Make Everyone Horny.

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

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

Got To Lose Control Before You Take Control.

The Film [dream Of Life] Is The Way It Is Because It Was The Rhythm Of My Life, And Also Because The Director And The Editor Are Both Gifted And Both Fine Human Beings.

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

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.

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.

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.

As I Grew Up, One Of My Strongest Allies Has Been My Sister.

Eyeing The Traffic Circulating The Lobby Hung With Bad Art. Big Invasive Stuff Unloaded On Stanley Bard In Exchange For Rent. The Hotel Is An Energetic, Desperate Haven For Scores Of Gifted Hustling Children From Every Rung Of The Ladder. Guitar Bums And Stoned-out Beauties In Victorian Dresses. Junkie Poets, Playwrights, Broke-down Filmmakers, And French Actors. Everybody Passing Through Here Is Somebody, If Not In The Outside World.

Christianity Made Us Think There's One Heaven.

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.

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

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.

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

Punk Rock Is Just Another Word For Freedom.

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

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

I've Always Thrived On The Encouragement Of Others.

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

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Whittaker Chambers

Pierre Salinger

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