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I didn't begin my life in 1975 with 'Horses.' I recorded 'Horses' in 1975, but was drawing in Paris in 1969.
Patti Smith
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Patti Smith emphasizes that her artistic journey began before her famous work, highlighting the importance of foundational experiences.

In this quote, Patti Smith reflects on her creative process, indicating that her artistic development and inspiration began well before her famous album 'Horses.' By referencing her time drawing in Paris in 1969, she underscores that significant influences and experiences shape an artist's work, regardless of when they receive recognition.

Themes

ArtCreativityJourneyInfluenceDevelopment

In practice

Example use cases

During an art class, to inspire students about the importance of their early influences, one could say, 'Remember, like Patti Smith, your experience shapes your art, no matter when you gain recognition.'

More from Patti Smith

I just do my work, and I work every day, and my ambition is just to do something better than I last did.
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My small torrent of words dissipated into an elaborate sense of expanding and receding. It was my entrance into the radiance of imagination. This process was especially magnified within the fevers of influenza, measles, chickenpox, and mumps. I got them all and with each I was privileged with a new level of awareness. Lying deep within myself, the symmetry of a snowflake spinning above me, intensifying through my lids, I seized a most worthy souvenir, a shard of heaven’s kaleidoscope.
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For everything bad, there's a million really exciting things, whether it's someone puts out a really great book, there's a new movie, there's a new detective, the sky is unbelievably golden, or you have the best cup of coffee you ever had in your life.
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Eyeing the traffic circulating the lobby hung with bad art. Big invasive stuff unloaded on Stanley Bard in exchange for rent. The hotel is an energetic, desperate haven for scores of gifted hustling children from every rung of the ladder. Guitar bums and stoned-out beauties in Victorian dresses. Junkie poets, playwrights, broke-down filmmakers, and French actors. Everybody passing through here is somebody, if not in the outside world.
Patti SmithRead
I've always felt outside of things; I've always felt different.
Patti SmithRead
No matter what anybody thinks about any of them, every record I've done has been done with the same amount of care, anguish, pain, suffering, and joy.
Patti SmithRead

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Quote by Patti Smith | QuoteProject