Patti Smith Quotes

Right now as an artist, what I want to do is be a part of works that are unignorable. I couldn't be less interested in how people receive it, honestly. As long as it's unignorable.

I like to provoke. I'm very French.

I don't have any interest in filmmakers making statements just for the sake of being provocative.

I always like to create things that get attention. It used to be a problem when I wasn't famous. Now, I can do whatever I want and people have to accept it.

I curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.

You can find truly original pieces of writing, but they're original because you go, "Who would have even have thought of that?," or, "Why would anyone ever want to go see that?"

When I found out after that first successful exhibition that the gallery wanted me to do another show like the first one, I come out two years later with four 6-foot drawings of classical nudes masturbating. The gallery director flipped the freak out!

I don't know why, but I always feel a kind of necessity to write things that are beyond acceptance, that are too offensive or something. For people to read them and say, Ha-ha-ha, very funny. No, we can't print that.

My lyrics aren't offensive. Some people find everything offensive.

When you're young, with less on the line, it's easier to be audacious, to experiment. So I introduced the concerns of my generation - politics, sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, etc. - to the comics page, which for many years caused a rolling furor.

I've been alienating my public since I was 20 years old. When 'American Buffalo' came out on Broadway, people would storm out and say, 'How dare he use that kind of language!' Of course I'm alienating the public! That's what they pay me for.

I liked Lady Gaga's meat dress. It was funny.

The amusing thing about 'X-Force' is that it was highly rated - and hated - in about equal measure, Which suited me just fine. If no-one's feathers were a little ruffled, we probably wouldn't have been doing our jobs right.

And, moreover, it is art in its most general and comprehensive form that is here discussed, for the dialogue embraces everything connected with it, from its greatest object, the state, to its least, the embellishment of sensuous existence.

I don't want to talk about negative, dark things. The only thing I've got against stuff like Marilyn Manson is, they make unbelievable videos and unbelievable images.

Marilyn Manson is a criticism of gimmickry, while being itself a gimmick.

We tried to make a movie that had sex and violence because we like sex and violence.

I have a slight controversy with the Dogme brethren because I've been saying that rules are to be interpreted; not that I haven't followed the rules, because I don't see the point of submitting yourself to a set of rules if you don't follow them. But having said that, it is always a lot of interpretation.

As an artist you have the luxury of maybe presenting an issue in a certain way, as opposed to actually solving it.

I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrong.

Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and fields blue ought to be sterilized.

I have never written out of a desire to be controversial.

All good art is an indiscretion.

I am used to making people upset and uncomfortable with my lyrical content when it comes to music.

You should live hoping you are going to offend people, because then you're doing something.