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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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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
People
Desire
Clay
Money
Sorts
Else
Wanting
Hands
Core
Ends
Offers
Someone
Amount
Hard
Vision
Cher
Make
Came
Reformed

More quotes by Patti Smith

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I had gone to Paris to immerse myself in painting and I came back wholly involved in words and rhythms.
Patti Smith
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People like beauty and purity. They pretend that's what it's all about.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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I like photographing dresses in windows. I actually wore a lot of dresses in the '70s. I like them on other people now.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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You can't carve up the world. It's not a pie.
Patti Smith
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The new artists coming through were very materialistic and Hollywood, not so engaged in communication.
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
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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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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.
Patti Smith
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People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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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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My mission is to communicate, to wake people up, just to give them my energy and accept theirs.
Patti Smith
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Love is an angel disguised as lust.
Patti Smith
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I've always thrived on the encouragement of others.
Patti Smith
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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.
Patti Smith
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Sometimes I get lost in watching a film. The sorrow, or the frustration, is when it doesn't happen for a long time.
Patti Smith