Patti Smith Quotes

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Patti Smith

Profession : Musician

Birth : December 30, 1946

In the '60s, I used to love rock magazines; I'd cut out pictures of Bob Dylan and John Lennon.

Patti Smith

We didn't have the phrase 'style icon' when I was young, but I have to say, I really copied Bob Dylan when I was younger: a little bit of Bob Dylan or a lot of Bob Dylan and the French symbolist poets - I liked how they dressed - and Catholic school boys.

Patti Smith

I get up, and if I feel out of sorts, I'll do some exercises, I'll feed my cat, then I go get my coffee, take a notebook, and write for a couple of hours.

Patti Smith

I know that some people have different personas for the different things they do, and I'm not criticizing that - maybe it's a good thing - but I'm the same old person, so I take everything in stride.

Patti Smith

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.

Patti Smith

I didn't love Jim Morrison 'cause he was self-destructive. I loved him because of his work. Because of the way he merged poetry and rock-and-roll. Because he did something new.

Patti Smith

I voted for Obama. I was very happy when he won. But Obama hasn't really been able to effectively do anything that has made me... He hasn't helped the environment. He didn't close Guantanamo Bay. He went deeper into Afghanistan.

Patti Smith

It's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing. I'm not a musician. I never thought of performing in a rock n' roll band. I was just drawn in. It was like being called to duty - I was called to duty, and I did my duty as best as I could.

Patti Smith

I had a penchant myself for doing several things at once. I wanted to draw, write, speak.

Patti Smith

I work to Glenn Gould in the morning and go to sleep listening to Parsifal.

Patti Smith

I am still a very optimistic person. I continue to do work with joy.

Patti Smith

I sang 'O Holy Night' with the Vatican orchestra, but also a Blake - a lullaby that William Blake wrote for the Christ child, and I set it to music, and the Vatican orchestra played the music.

Patti Smith

I love playing the Fillmore. I love the walk from the hotel and climbing up those old, iron stairs that lead to the stage. I imagine Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and all those other great bands climbing those same stairs.

Patti Smith

I remember the first club we played in San Francisco. There were a lot of people on motorcycles standing around outside, and I had trouble getting in. I didn't have any ID, and the guy at the door wouldn't let me in, even though I told him I was gonna be singing in there.

Patti Smith

Of course, every artist has 'minor works' that they do, but I don't think I have any 'minor disciplines.' Each discipline I approach as a major undertaking that I put my whole self into.

Patti Smith

I was actually born in Chicago, and then when I was a toddler, my parents moved to Philadelphia.

Patti Smith

My dad got a job in a factory in Philadelphia, so I was raised in Germantown in a sort of a barracks for soldiers. They had housing for temporary housing. And then my parents saved money and bought a little house in South Jersey, built on a swamp.

Patti Smith

My parents were very humanistic, but where we lived was not the cultural center of the world. Hardly. So I came to New York for two reasons: to find my own kin and also to get a job. And that's what I came to New York for in '67.

Patti Smith

The only thing I daydreamed about was being an opera singer. But I was so skinny and so pathetic that that sort of wasn't going to happen.

Patti Smith

I don't believe any artist who says, 'I had to do that because DJs will tell me I can't play that music. I will lose my job.' Well, lose the job and create a new job. If your label won't let you have the cover you want or sing the songs you want, then leave!

Patti Smith