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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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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
Play
John
Always
Hold
Like
Minutes
Playing
Coltrane
Takes
Talks
Talking
Solo
Seems
Melody
Might
Starts

More quotes by Patti Smith

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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.
Patti Smith
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We were walking toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us. Robert enjoyed being noticed, and he affectionately squeezed my hand. oh, take their picture, said the woman to her bemused husband, I think they're artists. Oh, go on, he shrugged. They're just kids.
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If you over-plan, you close the door on possibilities.
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Sure I destroyed my guitar at every concert, but it was okay, because I'd always get a shiny new one the very next day.
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Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.
Patti Smith
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Why do people want to know exactly who I am? Am I a poet? Am I this or that? I've always made people wary. First they called me a rock poet. Then I was a poet that dabbled in rock. Then I was a rock person who dabbled in art.
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A lot of children don't have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth I liked flannel and not polyester.
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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.
Patti Smith
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I had this idea that the coolest thing that could happen to you was talking with God.
Patti Smith
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By the time I was 10 or 11, I was completely demoralized. I thought, I'm done. I'm never going to be a missionary, because my indiscretion column, whether it was little lies or stealing a Chunky bar, kept me from sainthood.
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All the traumas I went through separating art from writing don't exist anymore. That's why I love being in rock 'n' roll. It's a whole life thing.
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We learned we wanted too much. We could only give from the perspective of who we were and what we had. Apart, we were able to see with even greater clarity that we didn’t want to be without each other.
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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I imagined myself as Frida to Diego, both muse and maker. I dreamed of meeting an artist to love and support and work with side by side.
Patti Smith
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Pollution is a necessary result of the inability of man to reform and transform waste.
Patti Smith
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My introduction to photography and a lot of how I developed aesthetically was through '50s and early-'60s fashion magazines like Harper's Bazaar and Vogue.
Patti Smith
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When I was working on the lyrics, I thought of all the lullabies we learn as children: Away in the Manger, William Blake's lullabies. I realized that the key to lullabies is simplicity.
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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.
Patti Smith
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I hate to be enclosed. I don't like bathroom doors - I don't shut them. In fact, in my house, I have no doors.
Patti Smith
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Everything distracted me, but most of all myself.
Patti Smith