Patti Smith Quotes

Those who are waiting for an epiphany to strike may wait forever. The artist simply goes to work, making art, both good and not so good.

If I'm painting, I paint every day. I'll be up in the studio from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night.

I view art as an inspirational tool.

The heart of creativity is discipline.

Discipline is the servant of inspiration.

I start a picture and I finish it.

I spend a lot of time working as a painter and in my studio I go from upstairs where I paint to downstairs where I play and record, so I get this thing crossing over.

For a sculptor, a painter, a weaver, a potter, the dialogue between one's materials and what one makes from them is easy to see: discover a new material or a new way to use a familiar one, and new things can be made, sometimes leading to the discovery of more new material, leading to more creation.

An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.

I found I have to stay painting.

In my experience a painting is not made with colors and paint at all. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint?

I can concentrate on my art.

Wonder and awe are the diet of the artist and without them the world would be far less meaningful to us than it is.

I think there's something beautiful about the art of making art, and it just will live and breathe.

In Spring! In the creation of art it must be as it is in Spring!

The artist does not really create; he discovers.

You know a trillion times more about art than me. But I’ve learned that it isn’t necessary to know all that much. You just make what you wanna see, right? It’s a game, right? It’s like being paid for dreaming.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

I try to paint what I have found and not what I look for. In art, intentions are of little importance.

Art is both creation and recreation.

With the artists, I don't teach, I coach. I can't tell them how to make art. I tell them to make more art. I tell them to get up early and stay up late. I tell them not to quit. I tell them if somebody else is already making their work. My job is to be current with the discourse and not be an asshole. That's all I wanted in a professor.

Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up

When I make a picture, I make love.