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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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Patti Smith
Age: 78
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
Everybody
Nurse
Nursed
Else
Hundreds
Cleaned
Live
Citizen
Diapers
Children
Period
Toilet
Life
Periods
Laundry
Like
Citizens
Tons
Learned
Toilets
Changed
Bowls

More quotes by Patti Smith

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Remember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.
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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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.
Patti Smith
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Life is like a roller coaster. It's never going to be perfect - it is going to have perfect moments, and then rough spots, but it's all worth it.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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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.
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 wasn't a stranger to hard times. I used to read the Bible - well, I still do, but when I was young I read the Bible quite a bit.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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We went our separate ways, but within walking distance of one another.
Patti Smith
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I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.
Patti Smith
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I'm not afraid of terrorism at all. I'm afraid of loss of our freedom, loss of mobility, loss of global comradeship.
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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If you over-plan, you close the door on possibilities.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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Ultimately, I want to make everyone horny.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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I think masturbating is a really important function in art. People don't like to hear that kind of stuff, but it's true.
Patti Smith