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.”

“I think we have a creative impulse where suffering can magnify our work, but so can joy. You can be in love and write the greatest love song ever. Sometimes I think too much suffering makes it difficult to do one's work.”

“I remember when the Bic pen was controversial. They came from France. They were cheap, and when one was out of ink, you threw it away; you didn't dip it into more ink.”

“I know what that tastes like, to be a rock-and-roll star - to have a limousine, to have girls screaming when they see you, girls trying to cut my hair, get a piece of me. But I don't walk around with a concept of myself as a rock-and-roll star, and certainly not as a musician, because I really can't play anything, except primitively.”

“I was studying Francis of Assisi for quite some time, when Benedict was still the pope. And I was studying it for a song that I did for my last album, 'Banga.'”

“The only thing I daydreamed about was being an opera singer. But I was so skinny and so pathetic that that sort of wasn't going to happen.”

“I've always thrived on the encouragement of others.”

“Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire.”

“The new artists coming through were very materialistic and Hollywood, not so engaged in communication.”

“I was raised Jehovah's Witness. I was in Bible school at five or six years old, but I wouldn't say that we were a religious family.”

“Good news doesn't necessarily have to be a positive thing. Bringing good news is imparting hope to one's fellow man.”

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

“It was always my belief that rock and roll belonged in the hands of the people, not rock stars.”

“I read and feel that same compulsion; the desire to possess what he has written, which can only be subdued by writing something myself.”

“I was actually born in Chicago, and then when I was a toddler, my parents moved to Philadelphia.”

“The thing I've always liked about performing is that I decide what I want to wear, whether I want to comb my hair.”

“I remember the first club we played in San Francisco. There were a lot of people on motorcycles standing around outside, and I had trouble getting in. I didn't have any ID, and the guy at the door wouldn't let me in, even though I told him I was gonna be singing in there.”

“Everyone has a creative impulse, and has the right to create, and should.”

“You can't carve up the world. It's not a pie.”

“Then I read Little Women, and of course, like a lot of really young girls, I was very taken with Jo - Jo being the writer and the misfit.”