870 Quotes by Patti Smith

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.

He picks the lock of her dreams with her own hairpin.

Christianity made us think there’s one heaven.

I hate being confined, especially when it’s for my own good.

Here is joy and neglect. A little mescal. A little jacking off, but mostly just work. – This is how I live, I am thinking.

The heavy scent of perfume and the red slashes of lipstick, so strong in the fifties, revolted me. For a time I resented her. She was the messenger and also the message.

All doors are open to the believer. It is the lesson of the Samaritan woman at the well.

All I’ve ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful.

The process of boarding a plane without a book produces a wave of panic. The right book can serve as a docent of sorts, setting a tone or even altering the course of a journey.