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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.

-Patti Smith

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The Film [dream Of

Patti Smith

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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.

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There's Nothing Cool About Being Self-destructive.

Self Destructive

Self Destructive Behavior

Please, No Matter How We Advance Technologically, Please Don't Abandon The Book. There Is Nothing In Our Material World More Beautiful Than The Book.

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

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.

That's What Artists Do, That's What Poets Do - We All Do It. We Start With Something, And Sometimes We Destroy Everything That We've Made In Order To Get To The Core Place Where We Started From.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

To Me, Punk Rock Is The Freedom To Create, Freedom To Be Successful, Freedom To Not Be Successful, Freedom To Be Who You Are. It's Freedom.

I Realize That People Need Something To Believe In.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Was So Unhealthy As A Child, And At Least Three Or Four Times My Parents Were Told To Get Ready, That I Would Not Make It.

Blessedness Is Within Us All.

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

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.

No One Knows How Powerful Technology Is.

I Don't Think Public Life In And Of Itself Can Destroy You. I Think It's The Way People React To It, And Some People Are More Sturdy Than Others... I Don't Think Any One Faction Can Be Blamed For A Person's Self Destruction - A Certain Amount Of That Has To Be Innate.

Vowels Are The Most Illuminated Letters In The Alphabet. Vowels Are The Colors And Souls Of Poetry And Speech. (1976 Penthouse Interview)

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

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.

We Were As Hansel And Gretel And We Ventured Out Into The Black Forest Of The World.

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

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 Love Being Alive. I Like Being A Human Being.

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.

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 Had A Handful Of Records, But When I Was 11 Years Old, I Liked Puccini As Much As Little Richard. They Both Made Sense To Me.

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.

Punk Rock Is Just Another Word For Freedom.

I'm Pretty Moral About What I Do. If I Didn't Think I Was Worthy Of Doing Something, I Wouldn't Do It. I Ain't Gonna Waste A Bunch Of People's Time.

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 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.

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

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

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 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.

Sometimes I Just Wanted To Raise My Hands And Stop. But Stop What? Maybe Just Growing Up.

New York Is The Thing That Seduced Me.

Artists Are Traditionally Resistant To Labels.

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

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

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.

I Studied The Bible Seriously Until I Was Young Teenager. It Was Always Part Of Our Home Education: Talking About The Bible, Arguing About The Bible, Interpreting It. So I Don't Connect Prayer Or Scriptures With Any Particular Religion So It's Not A Contradiction In My Life.

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

An Artist Is Somebody Who Enters Into Competition With God.

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

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

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'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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Within That Moment Was Trust, Compassion, And Our Mutual Sense Of Irony. He Was Carrying Death Within Him And I Was Carrying Life. We Were Both Aware Of That, I Know.

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

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.

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.

Words Are Just Rules And Regulations To Me.

Rules And Regulations

I Think I Work In Two Worlds. I'll Always Try To Kick Through A Wall. I Did That When I Was Younger And I Still Have My Way Of Doing That.

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.

No One Expected Me. Everything Awaited Me.

We're A Culture More Than Ever That Wants Proof Of Everything, We Want Things Fast, And Someone Sends You An Email, You Want To Answer In Five Minutes. We Have To Allow Ourselves Nothingness, In Our Relationships Too.

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

New York Is The Thing That Seduced Me. New York Is The Thing That Formed Me. New York Is The Thing That Deformed Me. New York Is The Thing That Perverted Me. New York Is The Thing That Converted Me. And New York Is The Thing That I Love Too.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

Life Is An Adventure Of Our Own Design Intersected By Fate And A Series Of Lucky And Unlucky Accidents.

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

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

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.

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.

When I Started Making Music, We'd Lost A Lot Of Our Great People. Rock Was Moving In A Direction I Didn't Like. Rock Was My Generation's Revolutionary, Sexual, Poetic, And Political Voice, But It Had Become Corporatized. It Was Going Into Stadiums. It Was So Far Removed From Its Basic Roots.

[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've Never Felt Grounded Because Of My Ancestry Or My Gender. I Think Until Women Get Away From That They're Not Going To Be Great Writers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

I Didn't Want Any Middle-of-the-road Creep. I Always Wanted The Toughest Guy In School, The Guy From South Philly Who Wore Tight Black Pants. Y'know, The Guy Who Carried The Umbrella And Wore White Shirts With Real Thin Black Ties. I Was Really Nuts Over This Guy Named Butchie Magic 'cause He Let Me Carry His Switchblade.

My 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.

Never Let Go Of That Fiery Sadness Called Desire.

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

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.

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.

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.

When I Was Home, Traditionally Since I Was Young, I'd Write In Cafés. That Was The Romantic Notion In 1963. Café Atmospheres Back Then Were Different. The Café Life Really Stemmed From The Parisians' Idea Of It, With Poets Struggling Over Their Poems And Drinking Coffee. No Music, No Sounds, Maybe A Little Jazz, Or Soul, But Mostly Nothing. Now You Go Into A Café And The Music Is Really Loud, People Are Having Business Meetings, They Are On Their Cellphones. It Changes From Generation To Generation.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Was Raised In Rural South Jersey, And There Was No Culture There. There Was A Small Library, And That Was It. There Was Nothing Else.

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

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

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

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.

Pollution Is A Necessary Result Of The Inability Of Man To Reform And Transform Waste.

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

Wasting My Time

Paths That Cross Will Cross Again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 Hated The Soup And Felt Little For The Can.

Grief Isn't All Tears.

When I'm On My Own With My Camera, Taking These Pictures, It Feels As If I Am In A Room Of My Own, A Self-contained World.

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

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

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 Wanted To See Who This Yeats Person Was, And I Said To My Mother, 'i Want A Book By This Person.' And She Bought It For Me, And A Lot Of It Was Over My Head, But I Had It.

In 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?

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

Christianity Made Us Think There's One Heaven.

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.

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 Hate To Be Enclosed. I Don't Like Bathroom Doors - I Don't Shut Them. In Fact, In My House, I Have No Doors.

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

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 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.

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

The Issue Of Gender Was Never My Biggest Concern; My Biggest Concern Was Doing Good Work. When The Feminist Movement Really Got Going, I Wasn't An Active Part Of It Because I Was More Concerned With My Own Mental Pursuits.

Committing Great Work Does Not Necessarily Feed You.

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.

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

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 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.

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

I 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.

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

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.

We Were Walking Toward The Fountain, The Epicenter Of Activity, When An Older Couple Stopped And Openly Observed Us. Robert Enjoyed Being Noticed, And He Affectionately Squeezed My Hand. "oh, Take Their Picture," Said The Woman To Her Bemused Husband, "i Think They're Artists." "oh, Go On," He Shrugged. "they're Just Kids.

Steven [sebring] Just Fell In With My Family Life. He Helped Me Wash The Dishes And Play With The Kids. I Could Tell That He Was A Person Who Understood Families.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

I'm Old-fashioned. I Think William Blake And People In The Renaissance People Were Multi. Look At Da Vinci, He Was Involved In Science; And Michelangelo Was Dabbling In Poetry. Both Of Them Were Painters And Sculptors But They Also Involved Themselves With Architecture. I Honestly Don't Know What Happened In The '60s And '70s. If You Sang Rock And Roll In America At That Time Or Were Involved In Expressing Yourself Through Music Like That, Then Many Thought You Couldn't Possibly Be An Artist. That Thinking Is Archaic.

I Don't Like Answering To Other People's Philosophies. I Don't Have Any Philosophy, I Just Believe In Stuff. Either I Believe In Something Or I Don't. Like, I Believe In The Rolling Stones But Not In The Dave Clark Five. There's Nothing Philosophic About It. Whenever I'm Linked With A Movement, It Pisses Me Off.

I Wish I Could Just Project Everything On The Paper.

People Say The Media Is Feeding The Public's Hunger For Celebrity News, But That's The Drug Pusher's Mentality. I Don't Think Anybody Would Be Pining For News About Angelina Jolie's Babies If It Weren't Being Given To Them In The First Place.

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

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

You Don't Want To Od On Improvisation.

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.

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?

Love Is An Angel Disguised As Lust.

Everything Distracted Me, But Most Of All Myself.

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

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

Then I Read Little Women, And Of Course, Like A Lot Of Really Young Girls, I Was Very Taken With Jo - Jo Being The Writer And The Misfit.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

We Never Had Any Children," He Said Ruefully. "our Work Was Our Children.

Writing Is Not Some Quiet, Closet Act.

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.

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.

I Loved Books; I Read My Childhood Away. I Was More Interested In My Interior World.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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Frederick Carl Frieseke

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