Patti Smith Quotes

When I had kids I sort of went into a hole for a few years and I think when I came out of that, I started to really become myself and know what works on me.

Before I had children I always wondered whether their births would be, for me, like the ultimate in gym class failures. And I discovered instead... that I'd finally found my sport.

You can't make your kids what you want them to be. They are who they are and you have to help them to succeed in the world as best you can.

We often marvel at how introverted, geeky, kid 'blossom' into secure and happy adults. We liken it to a metamorphosis. However, maybe it's not the children who change but their environments. As adults they get to select the careers, spouses, and social circles that suit them. They don't have to live in whatever culture they'er plunked into.

I can't help but be a different person now that I've had kids. That really does change your whole perspective on life for the better. I definitely feel like I've grown up. So, I guess in a way parts of me are going to be different, but in general I'm still the same girl from the Bronx who had big dreams.

I've changed in my sympathies since I've become a mother myself. In high school I went through a period where I was close with my mom and had to break with her in order to find myself and come back. Since that was my experience, that's often what happens in my books.

When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things.

I still feel like a kid sometimes myself so hard to believe that I'm a mom. Now I'm an adult! It only took 38 years!

You make sacrifices to become a mother, but you really find yourself and your soul.

My own cabaret is constantly evolving with what is occurring in my own life, so motherhood is a natural addition to it.

Having children is my greatest achievement. It was my saviour. It switched my focus from the outside to the inside. My children are gifts, they remind me of what's important.

When I found out I was pregnant, my mother said, 'Don't separate your life, the life that you're going to make with this child, from the things that you are and what you want to do.'

Like lots of women who marry young and find themselves mothers by the time they're 25, I felt I no longer had an identity.

I still learn, but I think it's the best thing in life to have a kid.

And (cue music swell) motherhood turned out to be the most meaningful thing I've ever done with my life. Really.

My children are, without question, the most wonderful thing. I've learnt more about myself through my children than any other experience in my life.

When I got pregnant, I knew I wasn't anywhere in my career, that I had not arrived. I was still on my adventure, and so I said to the child in my belly, 'I am so happy for you to come, but you should know I'm still on my way, and you'll have to come with me and be in my rucksack.'

Having a child as a single mother was a crucible - maybe this is true for all parents. I got rid of so much stuff that didn't really matter in the scheme of things-like throwing stuff out of an airplane that kept me flying too low. What was left was essential, i.e. not a lot of extraneous stuff that had kept me busy and people-pleasing. I just didn't have the luxury of wasting my life force on so much stupidity and distraction. That made me strong.

I feel different. You know this many times over, because you are a parent, but it transforms you. It's this incredible experience where, in one way, you are still very much yourself, and in some ways you become even more connected to the rest of yourself. All of a sudden, you just get more connected to your child self, and your teenage self, and all these selves that you've maybe been abandoning at every date post that you pass.

Cancer was the most terrifying, arduous, painful thing, but it was also a profound gift in the sense that I was holding so much in my body for so many years that was dark and terrifying which was preventing my coming back into myself.

I really felt the growth of myself as a human being, as a person [becoming a mother].

It's been the greatest gift that I've been given. Because no matter how much my parents have asked me to be more patient, no matter much my husband has asked me to be more patient, none of it mattered until I had a kid. And then all of sudden I was like, "Oh. I have to be more patient." They were all like, "Yeah! We've been telling you that for twenty years!" And I find it to be a gift. Every day I'm more patient.

It takes years to develop into the kind of human being you want to be.

Love, acceptance, friends, two kids that I love. I have to take care of myself for them. I've also been a vegetarian for two years.

Now I just feel like I'm more open to life. I have two children.