I have seen a lifetime of transgender people and it was hard enough being gay in the '50s and early '60s. One couldn't imagine the cruelty that trans people had to face back then. Patti Smith More Quotes by Patti Smith More Quotes From Patti Smith In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth. Patti Smith dream reality art The way our big cities change sucks. The beauty of cities was that they were edgy, sometimes even a little dangerous. Artists, poets, and activists could come and unify and create different kinds of scenes. Not just fashion scenes, scenes that were politically active. Big cities are getting so high-end oriented, business corporate fashion, fashion not in an artistic sense but in a corporate sense. For me that edgy beauty of cities is lost, wherever you go. Patti Smith fashion artist cities I never really wanted to be a singer - not with any longevity. But I always wanted to be a writer. Patti Smith longevity singers wanted We need a new cosmology. New gods. New sacraments. Another drink. Patti Smith cosmology drink needs New generations are intoxicated with the idea that they can make their presence known on the Internet. When I was young, there wasn't anything comparable. Very few got their picture in a magazine, fewer made records. We have to stand back and let them get their footing. Hopefully they'll come to the realization that the most important thing is their work and how they conduct themselves. Patti Smith generations important ideas The film [Dream of Life], in the end, is life-affirming, and I think it's always useful for people to be reminded that no matter how rough things get, no matter what kind of twists and turns our lives can take, we can keep going, we can create something new. Patti Smith dream people thinking I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I'm writing a poem or drawing, I'm not a female; I'm an artist. Patti Smith drawing artist writing Poetry is a solitary process. One does not write poetry for the masses. Poetry is a self-involved, lofty pursuit. Songs are for the people. When I'm writing a song, I imagine performing it. I imagine giving it. It's a different aspect of communication. It's for the people. Patti Smith communication writing song I hadn't performed or been in the public eye for about 16 years. When my husband passed away, I was obliged to go back to work to take care of our kids. I also wanted to do a record in memory of him. So we did Gone Again. During that process, I had to be photographed and had to go back to doing articles and interviews. Patti Smith husband memories kids I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth Patti Smith contradiction morality way We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world. Patti Smith black forests world I'm not afraid of terrorism at all. I'm afraid of loss of our freedom, loss of mobility, loss of global comradeship. Patti Smith mobility terrorism loss An artist wears his work in place of wounds. Patti Smith wounds artist Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself? Patti Smith youth knows heart I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one. Patti Smith proof artist stuff Yet you could feel a vibration in the air, a sense of hastening. It had started with the moon, inaccessible poem that it was. Now men had walked upon it, rubber treads on a pearl of the gods. Perhaps it was an awareness of time passing, the last summer of the decade. Sometimes I just wanted to raise my hands and stop. But stop what? Maybe just growing up. Patti Smith growing-up moon summer I've said this over and over, but I'll say it a million more times - I'm concerned more about the death of a bee than I am about terrorism. Because we're losing hives and bees by the millions because of such strong pesticides. Patti Smith pesticides strong bees I'm not saying I wasn't flawed or amateurish. But you can never say I did anything to appease the music business. Patti Smith music-business appease flawed New York is the thing that seduced me. Patti Smith new-york We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity. Patti Smith spiritual son fall
