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To be an artist — actually, to be a human being in these times — it’s all difficult. … What matters is to know what you want and pursue it.

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
Humans
Matter
Pursue
Matters
Actually
Times
Difficult
Artist
Human

More quotes by Patti Smith

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Fate is like a secret friend that helps push you on into life.
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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.
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My public life was so demanding that I wasn't doing the things that I deemed the most important.
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I know I'm a strong performer. I'm not an evolved musician.
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I'm pretty moral about what I do. If I didn't think I was worthy of doing something, I wouldn't do it. I ain't gonna waste a bunch of people's time.
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My father came a couple of times, but he always blamed his hearing loss on my loud amplifiers. So he didn't come anymore, but I had his support.
Patti Smith
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I was so used to doing art that my fingers were like albino spiders. So it was just natural for me to go to a typewriter and write poetry.
Patti Smith
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I studied the Bible seriously until I was young teenager. It was always part of our home education: talking about the Bible, arguing about the Bible, interpreting it. So I don't connect prayer or scriptures with any particular religion so it's not a contradiction in my life.
Patti Smith
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Look at Obama - he is now [2015] trying to help us environmentally but he should have done it eight years ago. He's trying to salvage his legacy and trying to do something good but we needed for him to show leadership from day one.
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I'm a worker. I do the work to communicate, and I want people to embrace it, and when they do I'm happy.
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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People have the power to redeem the work of fools.
Patti Smith
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Sometimes you have to abandon your own children for other children.
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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Just because I've extricated myself from religion doesn't mean I'm not interested in the scriptures. I look at the Bible as itself. It's a holy book, it has incredible literature in it and beautiful poetry.
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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My father's mother was from Liverpool and she had this very beautiful English china. I only wanted to drink my cocoa out of my grandmother's cup and saucer.
Patti Smith
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When I was young, I knew William Burroughs really well. And William's secret desire, which he never quite did, was to write a straightforward detective novel.
Patti Smith
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We wanted, it seemed, what we already had, a lover and a friend to create with, side by side. To be loyal, yet be free.
Patti Smith
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I was so horny in school it felt like my body was filled with electricity. I felt like I had neon bones or something.
Patti Smith