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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the vibrant, albeit chaotic, artistic community that exists within a hotel, highlighting the struggles and aspirations of its inhabitants.
Patti Smith's quote captures the essence of a unique artistic haven where various creative individuals converge, each seeking refuge and purpose in a world that may not recognize their talents. The descriptions of 'guitar bums', 'junkie poets', and 'broke-down filmmakers' paint a vivid picture of a transient community teeming with dreams and desperation, suggesting that while their artistic pursuits may be overlooked by society, within this sanctuary, they are all significant figures celebrated for their struggles and creativity.
Themes
ArtCommunityCreativityStruggleIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of artistic spaces in nurturing talent.
More from Patti Smith
All quotes →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.
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.
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I've always felt outside of things; I've always felt different.
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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.
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My son and daughter lost their father quite young, so we keep him present with us. It's just a daily practice.
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