Patti Smith Quotes

Sure, I’m dramatic and sloppily semi-cynical and semi-sentimental. But, in leisure years I could grow and choose my way. Now I am living on the edge. We all are on the brink, and it takes a lot of nerve, a lot of energy, to teeter on the edge, looking over, looking down into the windy blackness and not being quite able to make out, through the yellow, stinking mist, just what lies below in the slime, in the oozing, vomit-streaked slime; and so I could go on, my thoughts, writing much, trying to find the core, the meaning for myself.

Sometimes he thinks that if he could only trace the path of his life carefully enough, everything would become clear. The ways that he screwed up would make sense. He closes his eyes tightly. His life wasn't always a mistake, he thinks, and he breathes uncertainly for awhile, trying to find a pathway into unconsciousness, into sleep.

Because she was raw and uncertain, and she liked to keep all the messy parts of herself to herself. ... As much as Lena liked to hide the mess and display the finished product, by this point she was all mess and no product.

And I walk out of space Into an overgrown garden of values, And tear up seeming stability And self-comprehension of causes. And your, infinity, textbook I read by myself, without people - Leafless, savage medical book, A problem book of gigantic radicals.

I am not a man. I am not a human being inside. I am not that. I don't know what I am, but I am not that.

I had money, but I still didn't know what to do with my life.

There was a time where I was really confused about who I was and what I was doing, and I was just kind of depressed.

I'm not even sure who I really am sometimes.

I may be the wrong person for my life.

They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn't fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly.

...a disgruntled reflection on my own life as a sort of desperate improvisation in which I was constantly trying to make something coherent from conflicting elements to fit rapidly changing settings.

Every soul is a battlefield.

I wanted to be good but I wasn't sure if I was prepared

Oh my god what am I doing with my life?

During those formative times, I really didn't know what was going on, and I was sort of torn in a thousand different directions with how I felt about what I was doing.

I think the biggest obstacle I still have to overcome is myself, and just kind of struggling every day with what to do with the work and where to go next.

A man who has depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach . . .

Everyone doubts themselves. It's just a matter of admitting it or not.

You will be stupid. You will worry your parents. You will question your own choices, your relationships, your jobs, your friends, where you live, what you studied in college, that you went to college at all... If that happens, you're doing it right.

All through the night, she battled herself. Or battled to know herself. She fell apart and then put herself back together and then she fell apart again and put herself back together, over and over.

I am sometimes almost terrified at the scope of the demands made upon me, at the perfection of the self-abandonment required of me; yet outside of such absoluteness can be no salvation.

What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn't know the question?

I was just struggling with my inner vachette and pondering the depths of my own inhumanity.

I've gone through a lot of different phases on what I do and why I do it - morally and ethically. I've tortured myself about it, especially in dealing with success and money.

ONE OF THE UNSETTLING THINGS about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end.