870 Quotes by Patti Smith

My mission is to communicate, to wake people up, just to give them my energy and accept theirs.

When I was a child, I was certain that I could remember what it was like to live on Venus; I could remember what it was like to live in the American Plains. I could remember. And it's ancient memory. We all have it. It's just that some of us access it more than others.

The issue of gender was never my biggest concern; my biggest concern was doing good work. When the feminist movement really got going, I wasn't an active part of it because I was more concerned with my own mental pursuits.

He found it was as easy to hurl beauty as anything else. (On Robert Mapplethorpe)

Toyland, toyland . . . once you pass its portals you may never return again.

I've never felt grounded because of my ancestry or my gender. I think until women get away from that they're not going to be great writers.

Since childhood, it was my dream to go where all the poets and artists had been. Rimbaud, Artaud, Brancusi, Camus, Picasso, Bresson, Goddard, Jeanne Moreau, Juliette Greco, everybody - Paris for me was a Mecca.

When I was young, I was offered my first recording contract in 1971 and was offered quite a bit of money if I would change my character and be a '70s version of Cher.

I think some of that hopelessness of my generation got passed on to later generations - the sense of uselessness.