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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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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
Work
Taking
Multiple
Write
Walls
Anything
Perform
Find
Photograph
Without
Painful
Important
Road
Writing
Fields
Thing
Wall
Photographs

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Spare the child and spoil the rod, I am not sellin' myself to god.
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I don't think the Palestinian people or Afghan children or some other things I'm concerned about are at the top of other people's agendas - not right now, when America is going through such a recession and people are suffering across the board financially. But I think all that will change.
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Committing great work does not necessarily feed you.
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Punk rock is just another word for freedom.
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We're a culture more than ever that wants proof of everything, we want things fast, and someone sends you an email, you want to answer in five minutes. We have to allow ourselves nothingness, in our relationships too.
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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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I have loved books all my life. There is nothing more beautiful in our material world than the book.
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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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First of all, anybody who has lasted 30 and went through the 60's is really a survivor.
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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.
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I know I'm a strong performer. I'm not an evolved musician.
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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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I don't feel that censorship keeps me from doing the work, though. I'm my bigger censor.
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I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth
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I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.
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With the death of Robert Mapplethorpe, I had lost my main collaborator in taking photographs. So I didn't know who to work with.
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The things I thought would happen didn't. Things I never anticipated unfolded.
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