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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.

Patti Smith

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Patti Smith
Age: 77
Born: 1946
Born: December 30
Composer
Drawer
Guitarist
Human Rights Activist
Musician
Photographer
Poet
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Visual Artist
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Patricia Lee Smith
Punk
Rock
Rocks
Create
Successful
Freedom

More quotes by Patti Smith

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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.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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As I grew up, one of my strongest allies has been my sister.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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I've always had a desire to write something and capture people's imagination like Peter Pan had captured mine.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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It got to the point where I started hiding because I didn't want to be photographed. (On living with Robert Mapplethorpe)
Patti Smith
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People say hello to me. I mean, sometimes the sanitation truck goes by and says, hey Patti.
Patti Smith
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What I've always tried to do is to express the highest point of me, and rock 'n' roll is the first and the most open form created by our generation. The cool thing about it is that you get the power, you get the rhythm you can be taken over sexually, you can be taken over cerebrally it's great to look at - it's a package deal.
Patti Smith
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I wish I could just project everything on the paper.
Patti Smith
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Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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We tried not to age, but time had its rage.
Patti Smith
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Blessedness is within us all.
Patti Smith
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Wisdom was a teapot, pouring from above. Desolation angels, served it up with love.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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Deep in my heart how the presence of you shines, in a light to last a whole life through.
Patti Smith
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Some of us are born rebellious. Like Jean Genet or Arthur Rimbaud, I roam these mean streets like a villain, a vagabond, an outcast, scavenging for the scraps that may perchance plummet off humanity's dirty plates, though often sometimes taking a cab to a restaurant is more convenient.
Patti Smith