870 Quotes by Patti Smith

My penance for barely being present in the world, not the world between the pages of books, or the layered atmosphere of my own mind, but the world that is real to others.

I have vague memories, like impressions on glass plates...

When I stopped performing for 16 years and lived in Michigan and was married and raising my children, I wrote about four or five books. I haven’t published them.

I escaped into daydreams as I did my piecework. I longed to enter the fraternity of the artist: the hunger, their manner of dress, their process and prayers. I’d brag that I was going to be an artist’s mistress one day. Nothing seemed more romantic to my young mind. 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.

I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth.

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.

Just come back, I was thinking. You’ve been gone long enough. Just come back. I will stop traveling; I will wash your clothes.

The only parts I like out of any of those women books is the dirty parts. But I don’t think their dirty parts are any good, really.

What I really like is an intelligent review. It doesn’t have to be positive. A review that has some kind of insight, and sometimes people say something that’s startling or is so poignant.