I just do my work, and I work every day, and my ambition is just to do something better than I last did.
Patti SmithRead
I didn't begin my life in 1975 with 'Horses.' I recorded 'Horses' in 1975, but was drawing in Paris in 1969.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Patti Smith emphasizes that her artistic journey began before her famous work, highlighting the importance of foundational experiences.
In this quote, Patti Smith reflects on her creative process, indicating that her artistic development and inspiration began well before her famous album 'Horses.' By referencing her time drawing in Paris in 1969, she underscores that significant influences and experiences shape an artist's work, regardless of when they receive recognition.
Themes
ArtCreativityJourneyInfluenceDevelopment
In practice
Example use cases
During an art class, to inspire students about the importance of their early influences, one could say, 'Remember, like Patti Smith, your experience shapes your art, no matter when you gain recognition.'
More from Patti Smith
All quotes βMy small torrent of words dissipated into an elaborate sense of expanding and receding. It was my entrance into the radiance of imagination. This process was especially magnified within the fevers of influenza, measles, chickenpox, and mumps. I got them all and with each I was privileged with a new level of awareness. Lying deep within myself, the symmetry of a snowflake spinning above me, intensifying through my lids, I seized a most worthy souvenir, a shard of heavenβs kaleidoscope.
Patti SmithRead
For everything bad, there's a million really exciting things, whether it's someone puts out a really great book, there's a new movie, there's a new detective, the sky is unbelievably golden, or you have the best cup of coffee you ever had in your life.
Patti SmithRead
Eyeing the traffic circulating the lobby hung with bad art. Big invasive stuff unloaded on Stanley Bard in exchange for rent. The hotel is an energetic, desperate haven for scores of gifted hustling children from every rung of the ladder. Guitar bums and stoned-out beauties in Victorian dresses. Junkie poets, playwrights, broke-down filmmakers, and French actors. Everybody passing through here is somebody, if not in the outside world.
Patti SmithRead
I've always felt outside of things; I've always felt different.
Patti SmithRead
No matter what anybody thinks about any of them, every record I've done has been done with the same amount of care, anguish, pain, suffering, and joy.
Patti SmithRead
Similar quotes
For me, choosing between fiction and nonfiction is really only about picking the right tool for the job.
Colson WhiteheadRead
Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.
Samuel JohnsonRead
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.
Thomas MertonRead
Of course I know that the twins are only words on a page, and I'm certainly not the sort of writer who talks to his characters or harbours any illusions about the creative process. But at the same time, I think it's juvenile and arrogant when literary writers compulsively remind their readers that the characters aren't real. People know that already. The challenge is to make an intelligent reader suspend disbelief, to seduce them into the reality of a narrative.
Michel FaberRead
Sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.
Itzhak PerlmanRead
My partner sometimes liked to go into the studio and improvise voice things just for fun. When I returned from England I transcribed one of her melodies, and had some of the hospice participants sing it, because they said they liked to sing. Their singing is very raw, but I'm going to use it for the final work.
Meredith MonkRead