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
What I wanted to do in rock 'n roll was merge poetry with sonic scapes, and the two people who had contributed so much to that were Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.
Interpretation
Patti Smith emphasizes the fusion of poetic expression and musical sound in rock 'n roll.
In this quote, Patti Smith articulates her aspiration to blend the profound artistic elements of poetry with the auditory landscapes created in rock 'n roll music. She acknowledges the significant influence of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, two iconic figures who epitomized this merger, inspiring her vision of creating a rich, emotive experience through music that resonates on both a lyrical and sonic level.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion on the evolution of rock music in a classroom setting.
I just do my work, and I work every day, and my ambition is just to do something better than I last did.
My 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 heaven’s kaleidoscope.
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.
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.
I've always felt outside of things; I've always felt different.
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.
A good actor always sets you straight. If you've written a false moment and thought it was probably pretty great, the actor's gonna show you when he gets to that moment. They're the great test of the validity of the material.
I am scared; I don't know what is going to happen to me. What was the point of working so hard and of being talented, to be rewarded like this? Never a penny, tormented all my life. It is horrible; one cannot imagine it.
Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It's a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
I think that you certainly don't have to be aged and travel the world to write a poem.
Beautiful things don't ask for attention.
I love that moment just before the curtain goes up, whether I'm sitting in the audience or standing backstage. It's full of expectation. It's a thrill that's unequaled anywhere.
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