Patti Smith Quotes

The portrait I do best is of the person I know best.

I don't think anyone really knows me.

But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I knew best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No, my home. No, my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.

I've been living with myself all of my life, so I know all of me. So when I watch me, all I see is me. It's boring.

We write about ourselves because we know about ourselves.

The ultimate mystery is one's own self.

Well, I think that in every character there are little bits and pieces of yourself.

One of my problems is to find the self.

I'm always thinking about what my identity is.

I've never been a confessional writer.

To every man in the world there is one person of whom he knows little: whom he would never recognize if he met him walking down the street, whose motives are a mystery to him. That is himself.

A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself.

I think this is what college is all about: self-examination and dealing with those questions of "Who am I?"

To find out who you are is like putting yourself on a psychiatric couch, but you have nobody to help you. Really it isn't easy. I was talking with my nephew this morning and he gave me one of the best quotes I've heard in years 'Personal style is curiosity about oneself.'

I've spent my life cultivating knowledge of myself. But the more I know myself, the more utterly mysterious I become.

Maybe you didn't know what people thought of you because they themselves didn't know what they thought of you. Maybe you didn't give us enough to go on, Hannah.

It's important to be yourself. What art does for everyone, helps you understand yourself and in a distilled way, whether it's a painting or a scene in acting or a joke. It distills something about everyday life that can be important to you.

We all perform our lives in a way. And the actor is a perfect metaphor to get at that theme of 'how do we find our authentic selves?' And that we all - whether we're actors or not - perform ourselves. As a way of searching. As a way of fumbling around and trying to say, is this my voice? Is this who I am?

What you are is a question only you can answer.

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book.

My problem was I let myself become known before I knew myself.

I am really puzzled to understand myself.

Everything I write is about me.

In my book, I was trying to get into my own soul.