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My parents had three kids right after the Second World War, and we were all sort of sickly. Then I had a fourth sibling, with very serious asthma. The medical bills... So my parents always struggled.

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
Right
Parents
Always
Second
Sickly
World
Serious
Asthma
Parent
Struggled
Sort
Sibling
War
Fourth
Three
Medical
Kids
Bills

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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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My sunglasses are like my guitar.
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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.
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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.
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When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy or Chris Connor, or approaching songs with the kind of mystical lethargy of Billie Holiday, or championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenya. But I never dreamed of singing in a rock-and-roll band.
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New generations have unprecedented power to make great changes. Take the music business for example. The new generations have toppled the music industry by file sharing, downloading, and Myspace. Rock 'n' roll belongs to the people.
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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.
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I always know that everything I do is the best I could do.
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I always enjoyed doing transgender songs.
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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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Since I was a child, I hated having to deal with my hair. I hated having to change my clothes. As a kid, I had a sailor shirt and the same old corduroy pants, and that's what I wanted to wear everyday.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Rock n' roll is dream soup, what's your brand?
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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.
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