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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.

-Patti Smith

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We All Make Choices.

Patti Smith

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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.

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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.

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.

I'm Here Right Now And I Want Now To Be The Greatest 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

I Don't Wear Makeup. I Can't Stand Nothin' On My Face. It's A Phobia. It's Not A Platform.

I Find It Painful When I'm Without Anything. But I Work In Multiple Fields. If I Can't Write, I Find Myself Taking Photographs. I Can Go On The Road And Perform. But The Most Important Thing For Me Is Writing, And When I Hit Those Walls, It's Painful.

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

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.

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 Think Really That's Just The Basic Christian Lesson That Sometimes Takes Us Years And Years To Understand - Have Equal Concern For Another Human Being As You Have For Yourself Or Perhaps Even More Concern For Another Human Being Than You Have For Yourself.

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.

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.

...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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

Look At Obama - He Is Now [2015] Trying To Help Us Environmentally But He Should Have Done It Eight Years Ago. He's Trying To Salvage His Legacy And Trying To Do Something Good But We Needed For Him To Show Leadership From Day One.

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

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.

What I Wanted To Do In Rock'n'roll Was Merge Poetry With Sonic Scapes, And The Two People Who Had Contributed So Much To That Were Jimi Hendrix And Jim Morrison.

I Was 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.

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.

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.

In The Period Where I Had To Live The Life Of A Citizen - A Life Where, Like Everybody Else, I Did Tons Of Laundry And Cleaned Toilet Bowls, Changed Hundreds Of Diapers And Nursed Children - I Learned A Lot.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Committing Great Work Does Not Necessarily Feed You.

What I Say Should Always Be Prefaced With This: I'm Not Really Politically Articulate. I Just Try To Be Like Thomas Paine: What Is Common Sense? So When I Say These Things To You, I Am Speaking From A Humanist Point Of View. I Just Look Around And See What's Wrong.

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.

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.

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.

It Was No Hardship To Me To Spend Long Hours Reading And Writing.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 Always Hesitate When People Call Me A Musician.i Have Had No Musical Training. I Can't Play Anything. I Really Think Of Myself As A Performer. It's Always Been Writing For Me. I Evolved With My Band In Rock 'n' Roll Through Poetry, Not Through Music.

Blessedness Is Within Us All.

I'm Not Really A Nostalgic Person.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Paths That Cross Will Cross Again

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

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

I Always Wanted To Be An Artist, Writer And Poet Since I Was Seven, And One Has To Live Long Enough To Evolve As An Artist And Do One's Finest Work.

A Lot Of Children Don't Have A Developed Aesthetic. I Did. I Made Early Choices In Life, Even About Cloth; I Liked Flannel And Not Polyester.

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

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

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

I Wasn't Taking Drugs Or Drinking. I Was Working And Working And Working. But I Wasn't Writing Anything.

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

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.

Ms. It Sounds Like A Sick Bumblebee, It Sounds Frigid. I Mean, Who The Hell Would Ever Want To Stick His Hand Up The Dress Of Somebody Who Goes Around Calling Herself Something Like Ms.? It's All So Stupid.

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.

Trust Is Everything Between Two Artists, Or Between Subject And Artist. You Have To Have Trust Or Nothing Good Will Come Out Of It.

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

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.

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

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

I've Always Considered Myself A Writer.

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.

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.

Writing Is Not Some Quiet, Closet Act.

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

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

He Dreamed Of Amassing Musicians From All Over The World In Woodstock And They Would Sit In A Field In A Circle And Play And Play. It Didn't Matter What Key Or Tempo Or What Melody, They Would Keep On Playing Through Their Discordance Until They Found A Common Language.

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

Words Are Just Rules And Regulations To Me.

Rules And Regulations

I Was Quite An Insomniac. I Rarely Slept As A Child. Having God To Talk To At Night Was Nice.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

A Good Artist's Always Got His Hand In His Zipper.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 Was Always A Tomboy As A Kid. I Always Had Boyfriends. I Was Just A Regular Girl Growing Up In The Late '50s And Early '60s, But I Was Never Really Attracted To What The Girls Were Attracted To: Makeup, My Appearance, Homemaking.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

When I Was A Kid, I Loved Sherlock Holmes. I'm Not Interested In Crimes. I'm Interested In The Mind Of The Detective And His Process, Which To Me Is A Lot Like The Artist.

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

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 Wasn't Thinking So Much Of Music. I Wasnt Thinking So Much Of Perfection Or Stardom Or Any Of That Stuff.

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

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

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

I Have Disciplined Myself When I'm Working. When I Discovered Art, I Realized That One Could Keep That Search Going Within Creation. But I Also Realize That In Order To Create The Art, You Have To Stay, You Can't Go Too Far.

We 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.

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.

You Can't Carve Up The World. It's Not A Pie.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Was Never A Singer, I Can't Play Any Instruments, I Had No Training. Plus, I Was Brought Up In A Time When All The Great Rock Stars Were Male. I Didn't Have Any Template For What I Was Doing. I Did What I Did Out Of Frustration And Concern.

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

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

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 Had Met Michael Stipe, And He Was Such A Kind Person, And Extremely Understanding, So I Asked Him If He Knew A Photographer Who Would Come To Detroit, Where I Lived, Who Would Be Child Friendly And Who Would Respect My Home. Michael Suggested Steven [ Sebring]. One Day A Knock Came At My Door, And When I Opened It, There Was Steven. He's Been Like A Brother Ever Since.

I Hated The Soup And Felt Little For The Can.

Make Your Interactions With People Transformational, Not Just Transactional.

Christianity Made Us Think There's One Heaven.

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.

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

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

I Never Thought Of Being A Performer, Never Thought Of Being A Singer, Never Thought Of Being A Photographer. It's Just The Trajectory Of My Work. I Go To The Medium That Serves The Vision.

Everything Distracted Me, But Most Of All Myself.

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.

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.

Everyone Thinks Of God As A Man - You Can't Help It - Santa Claus Was A Man, Therefore God Has To Be A Man.

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.

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.

Punk Rock Is Just Another Word For Freedom.

Often The Simplest Song Is The Hardest To Write.

Ultimately, I Want To Make Everyone Horny.

My Mother Answers All My Fan Mail.

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.

Hung-up Women Can't Produce Anything But Mediocre Art, And There Ain't No Room For Mediocre Art.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

I Started Going To Bible School Really Early In Life. Being Raised A Jehovah's Witness, I Had To Read The Bible Over And Over. These Stories Were So Horrifying And Really Difficult To Reconcile. For Me, Noah Wasn't The Story Of The Graham Cracker Box With The Little Animals It Was Horrifying. I Would Ask The Same Questions As A Child. "well, What About The Little Kids? What About The Dogs And Cats?"

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.

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.

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

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

My Father Hated Rock And Roll - Hated It. My First Real Argument With My Father Was Over The Rolling Stones. And He Never, Ever Liked Rock And Roll. He Just Liked Me.

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

You Can't Work On That Scale Without Trust. I Learned That From Working With Robert Mapplethorpe.

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

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.

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

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.

Arthur Conan Doyle Had To Be Sherlock Holmes In Order To Envision How Sherlock Holmes Would Unravel A Mystery. He Had To Be In Sherlock's Situations. As A Writer, You Have To Be Of Two Minds.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

Just Because I've Extricated Myself From Religion Doesn't Mean I'm Not Interested In The Scriptures. I Look At The Bible As Itself. It's A Holy Book, It Has Incredible Literature In It And Beautiful Poetry.

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

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.

What I Really Like Is An Intelligent Review. It Doesn't Have To Be Positive. A Review That Has Some Kind Of Insight, And Sometimes People Say Something That's Startling Or Is So Poignant.

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

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R. A. Salvatore

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