Patti Smith

“A writer or any artist can’t expect to be embraced by the people. I've done records where it seemed like no one listened to them. You write poetry books that maybe 50 people read. And you just keep doing your work because you have to, because it’s your calling.But it’s beautiful to be embraced by the people.Some people have said to me, “Well, don’t you think that kind of success spoils one as an artist? If you’re a punk rocker, you don’t want to have a hit record…”And I say to them, “Fuck you!” One does their work for the people. And the more people you can touch, the more wonderful it is. You don’t do your work and say, “I only want the cool people to read it.” You want everyone to be transported, or hopefully inspired by it.When I was really young, William Burroughs told me, “Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work. And make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.”

“I was attracted to Robert's work because his visual vocabulary was akin to my poetic one, even if we seemed to be moving toward different destinations. Robert always would tell me, "Nothing is finished until you see it.”

“Kristus var en värdig man att göra uppror mot, för han var själv upproret personifierat.”

“Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.”

“Sadece kendim olmak istiyor ve Peter Pan klanından geliyordum. Biz asla büyümezdik.”

“We learned we wanted too much. We could only give from the perspective of who we were and what we had. Apart, we were able to see with even greater clarity that we didn’t want to be without each other.”

“No one expected me. Everything awaited me.”

“I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust.”

“Robert was concerned with how to make the photograph, and I with how to be the photograph.”

“Patti, did art get us?' I looked away, not really wanting to think about it. 'I don't know, Robert. I don't know.' Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art; or a saint.”

“He dreamed of amassing musicians from all over the world in Woodstock and they would sit in a field in a circle and play and play. It didn't matter what key or tempo or what melody, they would keep on playing through their discordance until they found a common language.”

“Nessuno mi stava aspettando. Ma mi aspettava ogni cosa.”

“Avevo trovato conforto in Arthur Rimbaud, in cui mi ero imbattuta a sedici anni, su una bancarella di libri di fronte alla stazione degli autobus di Philadelphia; il suo sguardo borioso aveva incrociato il mio dalla copertina di Illuminazioni. Possedeva un'intelligenza insolente capace di infiammarmi, e l'avevo accolto come un compatriota, un parente, un amore segreto perfino. Non avendo i novantanove centesimi per comprare il libro me lo ero messo in tasca.”

“Annemle dükkan vitrinlerinin önünden geçerken, ona insanların neden tekme atıp camları kırmadığını sorduğumu anımsıyorum. Annem de, insanların birlikte yaşayabilmelerini sağlayan, kelimelere dökülmeyen bir takım toplumsal davranış kurallarının varlığından söz etmişti. Bunu duyduğumda, her şeyin bizden öncekiler tarafından belirlenmesinden ve yol haritasının çıkarıldığı bir dünyada yaşamaktan dolayı kendimi sınırlandırılmış hissetmiştim. Yıkıcı güdülerimi bastırıp, yaratıcı olanlara yoğunlaşmak üzere kendimi eğitmiştim. Yine de, kurallardan nefret eden tarafım büsbütün ölmüş değildi.”

“Your work, coming from a fluid source, can be traced to the naked song of your youth. You spoke then of holding hands with God. Remember, through everything, you have always held that hand, grip it hard, Robert, and don't let go.(letter to Robert Mapplethorpe, 1970)”

“People have the power to redeem the work of fools.”

“Much has been said about Robert, and more will be added. Young men will adopt his gait. Young girls will wear white dresses and mourn his curls. He will be condemned and adored. His excesses damned or romanticized. In the end, truth will be found in his work, the corporeal body of the artist. It will not fall away. Man cannot judge it. For art sings of God, and ultimately belongs to him.”

“The city was a real city, shifty and sexual. I was lightly jostled by small herds of flushed young sailors looking for action on Forty-Second Street, with it rows of x-rated movie houses, brassy women, glittering souvenir shops, and hot-dog vendors. I wandered through Kino parlors and peered through the windows of the magnificent sprawling Grant’s Raw Bar filled with men in black coats scooping up piles of fresh oysters. The skyscrapers were beautiful. They did not seem like mere corporate shells. They were monuments to the arrogant yet philanthropic spirit of America. The character of each quadrant was invigorating and one felt the flux of its history. The old world and the emerging one served up in the brick and mortar of the artisan and the architects. I walked for hours from park to park. In Washington Square, one could still feel the characters of Henry James and the presence of the author himself … This open atmosphere was something I had not experienced, simple freedom that did not seem oppressive to anyone.”

“It seemed as if the whole of the world was slowly being stripped of innocence. Or maybe I was seeing a little too clearly.”

“He contained, even at an early age, a stirring and the desire to stir.”

“I immersed myself in books and rock 'n' roll, the adolescent salvation ...”

“But secretly I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revalation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not.”

“Everything distracted me, but most of all myself.”

“I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.”

“I have vague memories, like impressions on glass plates ...”

“I imagined a lot of things. That I would shine. That I'd be good. I'd dwell bareheaded on a summit turning a wheel that would turn the earth undetected, amongst the clouds, I would have some influence; be of some avail.”

“For a time Robert protected me, then was dependent on me, and then possessive of me. His transformation was the rose of Genet, and he was pierced deeply by his blooming.”

“The light poured through the windows upon his photographs and the poem of us sitting together a last time. Robert dying: creating silence. Myself, destined to live, listening closely to a silence that would take a lifetime to express.”

“We wanted, it seemed, what we already had, a lover and a friend to create with, side by side. To be loyal, yet be free.”

“I understood that what matters is the work: the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of color and graphite scrawled upon the sheet that magnifies His motion. To achieve within the work a perfect balance of faith and execution. From this state of mind comes a light, life-changed.”

“What is the soul? What color is it? I suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while I was dreaming and fail to return. I did my best not to fall asleep, to keep it inside of me where it belonged.”

“He wasn't certain whether he was a good or bad person. Whether he was altruistic. Whether he was demonic. But he was certain of one thing. He was an artist. And for that he would never apologize.”

“Remember, we are mortal, but poetry is not.”

“We were walking toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us. Robert enjoyed being noticed, and he affectionately squeezed my hand."oh, take their picture," said the woman to her bemused husband, "I think they're artists.""Oh, go on," he shrugged. "They're just kids.”

“Got to lose control before you take control.”

“I don't like categorizing stuff, but women's roles all through history have been to act as hierophant or someone who's guarded the secrets or guarded the temple. I'm a girl doing what guys usually did, the way that I look, the goals and kinds of things I want to help achieve through rock. It's more heroic stuff and heroic stuff has been traditionally male. Like Hendrix and Jim Morrison and all those people. I mean, Jim Morrison was trying to elevate the word; he was the poet in rock & roll before me. He was an academic poet. Lou Reed -- another academic poet. I'm more like down-to-earth than them guys”

“An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God. The guy who built the Tower of Babel was the first artist. If I had to check out where I was in other centuries, I was his old lady. If I wasn't the guy, I was his chick. He knew that there was more and God got jealous. Even gods get uptight. Women make gods uptight. Everyone thinks of God as a man -- you can't help it -- Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man. But a man comes once. A woman never stops coming.”

“Annem bana dua etmeyi öğretti, ona da kendi annesinin öğrettiği bir duaydı bu: Şimdi uykuya yatıyorum. Ruhumu koruması için İsa'ya dua ediyorum. Geceleri, ben küçük yatağımın yanında diz çöküp onun sözlerini tekrarlarken, o da ağzından hiç düşürmediği sigarası ile yanı başımda ayakta bekler, beni dinlerdi. Tek dileğim dua etmekti ama sözleri kafamı karıştırırdı ve annemi soru yağmuruna tutardım. Ruh nedir? Ne renktir? Çok yaramaz olduğu için ruhumun ben uyurken gizlice kaçıp sonra da geri dönmeyeceğinden korkuyordum. Uyuyakalmamak için elimden geleni yapardım; böylece ruhumu ait olduğu yerde içimde tutacaktım.”

“Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.”

“We went our separate ways, but within walking distance of one another.”

“Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.”

“Later he would say that the Church led him to God, and LSD led him to universe. He also said that art led him to the devil, and sex kept him with the devil.”

“These things were in my mind from the first moment I entered the vocal booth. The gratitude I had for rock and roll as it pulled me through a difficult adolescence. The joy I experienced when I danced. The moral power I gleaned in taking responsibility for one's action.-- Patti Smith”

“I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth”

“Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.”

“I don't think," he insisted. "I feel.”

“I wish I could just project everything on the paper,”

“There were days, rainy gray days, when the streets of Brooklyn were worthy of a photograph, every window the lens of a Leica, the view grainy and immoble. We gathered our colored pencils and sheets of paper and drew like wild, feral children into the night, until, exhausted, we fell into bed. We lay in each other's arms, still awkward but happy, exchanging breathless kisses into sleep.”

“What will happen to us?" I asked. "There will always be us," he answered.”

“I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.”