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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.

-Patti Smith

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When I Was Home,

Patti Smith

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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.

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A Writer, Or Any Artist, Can’t Expect To Be Embraced By The People [but] You Just Keep Doing Your Work - Because You Have To, Because It’s Your Calling.

I Worked For Hillary [clinton] When I Was Young - When She Was Running For The Senate. I Was Fundraising And Things, I See All Of These People As Political In A Way That Isn't Humanistic. I'm Just Watching And Hoping That Someone Is Going To Distinguish Himself Or Herself As Comprehending What We Need.

Technology Is 50% Of Rock 'n' Roll - The Magic, The Art, The Performance. If You Don't Have Good Technicians And A Strong Road Crew Who Are Devoted And Believe In You And Protect You, You're Totally Naked.

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

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.

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.

For Me, Personally, I Think Drugs Are Sacred And Should Be Used For Work. That's What I Believe In. Drugs Have A Real Shamanistic Value. I Can Handle Drugs. I've Never Had A Problem.

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.

Christianity Made Us Think There's One Heaven.

Will You Pretend You're My Boyfriend?

Music Television Is All About The Media-oriented Version Of What It Is To Be A Rock Star; It's Not About What Bob Dylan Or Jimi Hendrix Were About - Which Included Great Images, Sure, But They Had Spiritual And Political And Revolutionary Content, Too.

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.

When You Do Controversial Work, You're Going To Upset A Certain Amount Of People.

Writing Is Not Some Quiet, Closet Act.

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.

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.

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

If Someone Didn't Want To Be Filmed, Or My Children Said, "don't Film Me Anymore," [steven Sebring] Didn't Try To Sneak A Shot Or Cajole Them; He Just Respected Their Wishes.

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

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.

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

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

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 Wanted To Go To Portland Because It's A Really Good Book Town.

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.

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.

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.

New York Is The Thing That Seduced Me.

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

Artists Are Traditionally Resistant To Labels.

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

Polaroid By Its Nature Makes You Frugal. You Walk Around With Maybe Two Packs Of Film In Your Pocket. You Have 20 Shots, So Each Shot Is A World.

Remember, We Are Mortal, But Poetry Is Not.

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.

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

There Were Days, Rainy Gray Days, When The Streets Of Brooklyn Were Worthy Of A Photograph, Every Window The Lens Of A Leica, The View Grainy And Immobile. We Gathered Our Colored Pencils And Sheets Of Paper And Drew Like Wild, Feral Children Into The Night, Until, Exhausted, We Fell Into Bed. We Lay In Each Other's Arms, Still Awkward But Happy, Exchanging Breathless Kisses Into Sleep.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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Everything Distracted Me, But Most Of All Myself.

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

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Self Destructive

Self Destructive Behavior

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

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.

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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 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?"

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've Always Thrived On The Encouragement Of Others.

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.

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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.

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 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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 Hated The Soup And Felt Little For The Can.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

No One Expected Me. Everything Awaited Me.

An Artist Wears His Work In Place Of Wounds.

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.

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

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

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 Don't Think The Average American Understands What Patriotism Truthfully Is. That's Why When I Attack Our Country Or Attack The Government, It's Sometimes Looked At As Unpatriotic. It's Not.

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.

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.

In 1974, When I Started Working With The Material That Became Horses, A Lot Of Our Great Voices Had Died. We'd Lost Jimi Hendrix And Jim Morrison And Janis Joplin, And People Like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King And Malcolm X.

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

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

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.

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'd Never Had People Drive Me Around, And Then All Of A Sudden, If A Car Didn't Come, I'd Say, "where's My Car?"

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

One Thing I Did Have Under My Belt Was, My Mother Lost Her Mother When She Was 11. She Mourned Her Mother Her Whole Life And Made My Grandmother Seem Present Even Though I Never Met Her. I Couldn't Imagine How My Mom Could Go On But She Did, She Took Care Of Us, She Worked Two Jobs And Had Four Children. She Was Such A Good Example Of How To Conduct Oneself In A Time Of Grief. When I Lost My Husband, I Tried To Model Myself As Much As I Could On Her.

The Only Parts I Like Out Of Any Of Those Women Books Is The Dirty Parts. But I Don't Think Their Dirty Parts Are Any Good, Really.

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.

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.

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

Why Can't I Write Something That Would Awake The Dead? That Pursuit Is What Burns Most Deeply.

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

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.

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 Have Vague Memories, Like Impressions On Glass Plates.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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'm A Total Failure At Housewifery. I Always Have Been, 'cause I Daydream Too Much. If I Start Doing The Dishes At One In The Afternoon, I'll Still Be There At Six In The Evening.

I Always Wear The Same Thing Onstage.

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.

An Artist Is Somebody Who Enters Into Competition With God.

I Have Seen A Lifetime Of Transgender People And It Was Hard Enough Being Gay In The '50s And Early '60s. One Couldn't Imagine The Cruelty That Trans People Had To Face Back Then.

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

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

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

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

The Thing I've Always Liked About Performing Is That I Decide What I Want To Wear, Whether I Want To Comb My Hair.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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'm Not Really A Nostalgic Person.

People Have The Power To Redeem The Work Of Fools.

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?

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.

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'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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I Don't Care Whether They're Men Or Women, That's Bullshit. A Good Writer Can Get Into Any Gender, Can Get Into Any Mouth. When I Write I May Be A Brando Creep, Or A Girl Laying On The Floor, Or A Japanese Tourist, Or A Slob Like Richard Speck. You Have To Be A Chameleon When You're Writing.

I Have Abandoned So Many Projects But In The '80s When I Left Public Life To Be Married And Have Real Children - I Love My Children And I Would Never Sacrifice Them For Anything - I Had To Find A Way To Simultaneously Be A Mother And Wife And Fulfill My Duties And Still Be True To Myself As A Writer.

What A Model Of An Artist Was For Me Was An Artist Who Worked. Picasso Was The Ultimate Model, Because The Work Ethic He Had.

My Father's Mother Was From Liverpool And She Had This Very Beautiful English China. I Only Wanted To Drink My Cocoa Out Of My Grandmother's Cup And Saucer.

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.

Punk Rock Is Just Another Word For Freedom.

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

Who Can Know The Heart Of Youth But Youth Itself?

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 Was Working On The Lyrics, I Thought Of All The Lullabies We Learn As Children: "away In The Manger," William Blake's Lullabies. I Realized That The Key To Lullabies Is Simplicity.

I Believe Myself To Be An Artist. That Was My Calling, To Do My Work, And What's Most Important To Me Is To Do The Best Work I Possibly Can. And That Is What Means The Most, That Is What Will Endure.

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

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.

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.

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

When I Was Young, I Knew William Burroughs Really Well. And William's Secret Desire, Which He Never Quite Did, Was To Write A Straightforward Detective Novel.

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

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

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.

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

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

Ultimately, I Want To Make Everyone Horny.

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

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.

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

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