I come from a working-class family, and I’ve been working since I was 13, from babysitting to blueberry picking to factory work to bookstore work. And of course, being a mother and homemaker, the hardest work of all. – Patti Smith
An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn’t know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch. – Patti Smith
Usually when I go to a place for the first time, unless there’s something historical or spectacular that nature has to offer, the first thing I like to do is see what’s on the minds of the people. – Patti Smith
Since childhood, it was my dream to go where all the poets and artists had been. Rimbaud, Artaud, Brancusi, Camus, Picasso, Bresson, Goddard, Jeanne Moreau, Juliette Greco, everybody – Paris for me was a Mecca. – Patti Smith
If I have any regrets, I could say that I’m sorry I wasn’t a better writer or a better singer. – Patti Smith
The moment of creative impulse is what an artist gives you. You look at a Pollock, and it can’t give you the tools to do a painting like that yourself, but in doing the work, Pollock shares with you the moment of creative impulse that drove him to do that work. – Patti Smith
I knew William Burroughs really well, and I was always star struck being around him. I adored him. – Patti Smith
When I’m writing a book, I don’t have any responsibility to anyone. I’m solitary. I’m writing on my own. I write by hand. And I write every day. I mean, it’s part of my daily discipline. – Patti Smith
People came at me with all sorts of offers, wanting to make me into a hard-core Cher. I had no desire for any amount of money to be reformed for someone’s vision, because in the end, that’s what you got: your clay in someone else’s hands. – Patti Smith
Well, I’m not one of those people who needs the limelight. If I’m performing, that’s what I’m doing. If I’m not, I don’t long for it. I don’t need the approval of an audience, or applause. – Patti Smith
My mother had no end of tragedy in her life. She would make herself get up and take a deep breath and go out and do laundry. Hang up sheets. – Patti Smith
We never threw a record together. Each record was done really seriously, as if our life depended on it. – Patti Smith
I learned a lot from Arthur Rimbaud. People talk about how he wanted to be a seer and do that through the derangement of the senses. What they forget was that he also advocated, sternly and austerely, that one must be able to go through all that – and then articulate it. – Patti Smith
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. – Patti Smith
I just do my work, and I work every day, and my ambition is just to do something better than I last did. – Patti Smith
The thing I’ve always liked about performing is that I decide what I want to wear, whether I want to comb my hair. – Patti Smith
To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It’s freedom. – Patti Smith
As an artist, I used to think that my responsibility was to do good work. But I had to learn from the ’70s on that being a public figure presents another aspect of responsibility. – Patti Smith