870 Quotes by Patti Smith

I got some coffee and stood looking at the sky.

There are so many great 19th-century photographers, and it’s really my favorite period, but the amateurs did such beautiful work.

I’ve embraced rock ‘n’ roll because it encompasses all the things I’m interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism – all of these things can be found in rock ‘n’ roll. But I am also engaged in all of these things separately.

I wanted to see who this Yeats person was, and I said to my mother, ‘I want a book by this person.’ And she bought it for me, and a lot of it was over my head, but I had it.

I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I’m writing a poem or drawing, I’m not a female; I’m an artist.

For a brief moment I felt as if I might die; and just as quickly I knew everything would be all right.

Why is one compelled to write? To set oneself apart, cocooned, rapt in solitude, despite the wants of others. Virginia Woolf had her room. Proust his shuttered windows. Marguerite Duras her muted house. Dylan Thomas his modest shed. All seeking an emptiness to imbue with words. The words that will penetrate virgin territory, crack unclaimed combinations, articulate the infinite. The words that formed Lolita, The Lover, Our Lady of the Flowers.

A wind picked up and I could feel the sea within it.

The thing is, it’s not uncool to worry about people who seem like they’re going on the wrong path. There’s nothing cool about being self-destructive.