Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Writing
Imagine
Performing
People
Process
Pursuit
Song
Communication
Write
Aspect
Doe
Mass
Self
Songs
Lofty
Giving
Poetry
Masses
Different
Involved
Solitary

More quotes by Patti Smith

Image
I think its very important to not be afraid to experience joy in the middle of sorrow.
Patti Smith
Image
We never had any children, he said ruefully. Our work was our children.
Patti Smith
Image
I reflected on the fact that no matter how good I aspired to be, I was never going to achieve perfection
Patti Smith
Image
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.
Patti Smith
Image
Lets just say that I think any person who aspires, presumes, or feels the calling to be an artist has a built-in sense of duty.
Patti Smith
Image
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.
Patti Smith
Image
Social media could be very strong in terms of bringing people together but it also takes up so much of people's time that I wonder if we've lost the ability to daydream.
Patti Smith
Image
I'm not really a nostalgic person.
Patti Smith
Image
In any performance, you're on stage for two hours, and there's 40 seconds or maybe a whole five minutes where you feel like the whole universe is in place, and you've gone even beyond the universe that you know.
Patti Smith
Image
Everyone thinks of God as a man - you can't help it - Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man.
Patti Smith
Image
If I'm really working on something, writing or painting or really concentrating, I don't even think about brushing my hair.
Patti Smith
Image
My sunglasses are like my guitar.
Patti Smith
Image
I don't think people should do biopics of living people. I'm totally opposed to that.
Patti Smith
Image
Love is an angel disguised as lust.
Patti Smith
Image
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
Image
My mission is to communicate, to wake people up, just to give them my energy and accept theirs.
Patti Smith
Image
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
Image
[Steven Sebring] presence was also nice for my children, who, having just lost their father, quite naturally craved warm male attention. They gravitated to him right away.
Patti Smith
Image
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
Image
People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.
Patti Smith