Explore Quotes by Patti Smith

I am not really certain how original my contribution to music is as I am obviously an amateur.

First of all, anybody who has lasted 30 and went through the 60's is really a survivor.

Even as a child, I knew what I didn't want. I didn't want to wear red lipstick.

As I grew up, one of my strongest allies has been my sister.

Besides me wanting to be an artist, I wanted to be a movie star.

Americans just don't know what being a movie star's all about.

My sunglasses are like my guitar.

What I say should always be prefaced with this: I'm not really politically articulate. I just try to be like Thomas Paine: what is common sense? So when I say these things to you, I am speaking from a humanist point of view. I just look around and see what's wrong.

I wanted to go to Portland because it's a really good book town.

A lot of children don't have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester.

I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf.

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.

I had a really happy childhood - my siblings were great, my mother was very fanciful, and I loved to read. But there was always financial strife.

An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.

Everyone thinks of God as a man - you can't help it - Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man.

I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business.

I don't think the area of Jerusalem should be part of a Jewish state; it belongs to all people, to Christians and Muslims and the Jewish people.

Artists are traditionally resistant to labels.

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

In the period where I had to live the life of a citizen - a life where, like everybody else, I did tons of laundry and cleaned toilet bowls, changed hundreds of diapers and nursed children - I learned a lot.

I always enjoyed doing transgender songs.