You can’t change the world; you can’t fix the whole environment. But you can recycle. You can turn the water off when you’re brushing your teeth. You can do small things.
Throughout my life, I happily deferred to family, companions, children.
It was always my belief that rock and roll belonged in the hands of the people, not rock stars.
‘M Train’ is as close to knowing what I’m like as anything. I don’t know exactly what the book is about. All and nothing, I suppose.
I always wrote. I wrote every day. I don’t think I could have written ‘Just Kids’ had I not spent all of the ’80s developing my craft as a writer.
The idea of redemption is always good news, even if it means sacrifice or some difficult times.
To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It’s freedom.
There are so many great 19th-century photographers, and it’s really my favorite period, but the amateurs did such beautiful work.
I remember when the Bic pen was controversial. They came from France. They were cheap, and when one was out of ink, you threw it away; you didn’t dip it into more ink.
If your label won’t let you have the cover you want or sing the songs you want, then leave!
I know that some people have different personas for the different things they do, and I’m not criticizing that – maybe it’s a good thing – but I’m the same old person, so I take everything in stride.
When I was younger, I felt it was my duty to wake people up. I thought poetry was asleep. I thought rock ‘n’ roll was asleep.
Polaroid by its nature makes you frugal. You walk around with maybe two packs of film in your pocket. You have 20 shots, so each shot is a world.
My mom loved rock n’ roll. My father hated it. We couldn’t play it when he was around. He liked classical music and Duke Ellington.
Why do people want to know exactly who I am? Am I a poet? Am I this or that? I’ve always made people wary. First they called me a rock poet. Then I was a poet that dabbled in rock. Then I was a rock person who dabbled in art.
C’mon, I mean who didn’t listen to ‘The Who’ in the 60s?
I loved books; I read my childhood away. I was more interested in my interior world.
I come from a real working class background, and I didn’t know anyone sophisticated – except I saw Edie Sedgewick once at the Art Museum in Philly. She had these black leotards and little black pumps and this big ermine cape and all these white dogs and black sunglasses and black eyes. She was classy!
What I say should always be prefaced with this: I’m not really politically articulate. I just try to be like Thomas Paine: what is common sense? So when I say these things to you, I am speaking from a humanist point of view. I just look around and see what’s wrong.
My sunglasses are like my guitar.
It was no hardship to me to spend long hours reading and writing.
As far as I’m concerned, being any gender is a drag.
It’s taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing. I’m not a musician. I never thought of performing in a rock n’ roll band. I was just drawn in. It was like being called to duty – I was called to duty, and I did my duty as best as I could.
I like really hot coffee, not too strong.
I’m a worker. I do the work to communicate, and I want people to embrace it, and when they do I’m happy.
I haven’t had the most thrilling lifestyle. I was a pretty good dresser, but I would have a pretty boring ‘Behind the Music.’
Christianity made us think there’s one heaven.
Americans just don’t know what being a movie star’s all about.
In the period where I had to live the life of a citizen – a life where, like everybody else, I did tons of laundry and cleaned toilet bowls, changed hundreds of diapers and nursed children – I learned a lot.
All I’ve ever wanted, since I was a child, was to do something wonderful.
Usually when I go to a place for the first time, unless there’s something historical or spectacular that nature has to offer, the first thing I like to do is see what’s on the minds of the people.
I never thought I was gonna live to 30.
I’m not really a musician. I’m a performer, and I love rock n’ roll. I’ve embraced rock n’ roll because it encompasses all the things I’m interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism – all of these things can be found in rock n’ roll.
I loved being a rock and roll star, but it wasn’t what I wanted in life.
I was studying Francis of Assisi for quite some time, when Benedict was still the pope. And I was studying it for a song that I did for my last album, ‘Banga.’
My mother had no end of tragedy in her life. She would make herself get up and take a deep breath and go out and do laundry. Hang up sheets.
I don’t think the area of Jerusalem should be part of a Jewish state; it belongs to all people, to Christians and Muslims and the Jewish people.
I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I’m writing a poem or drawing, I’m not a female; I’m an artist.
To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It’s freedom.
As an artist, I used to think that my responsibility was to do good work. But I had to learn from the ’70s on that being a public figure presents another aspect of responsibility.
My mission is to stay healthy and productive and serve as a good example.
I didn’t know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, but I was affected by both of their deaths because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce.
I think I’m constantly in a state of adjustment.
Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.
I try not to give too much advice, really, because people have to do their things their way. I got lots of advice when I was young, and I ignored most of it – the good and the bad.
Good news doesn’t necessarily have to be a positive thing. Bringing good news is imparting hope to one’s fellow man.
We tried not to age, but time had its rage.
I was raised Jehovah’s Witness. I was in Bible school at five or six years old, but I wouldn’t say that we were a religious family.
I was a sickly child, not very strong physically. I wasn’t really the greatest in school. I didn’t really excel in anything particularly. But I was happy with who I was.
I have great respect for my parents. I got such beautiful things from both of them. It doesn’t mean that we didn’t have our rough times, but they were remarkable people who were open-minded, creative and hard-working, and had great senses of humor.
I’m an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.
I like revisiting my early work, and people like to hear it. I don’t make people suffer through any experimentation or new material. When I go see an artist, I want to hear the songs that drew me to them, so I do the same.
I always wanted to be an artist, writer and poet since I was seven, and one has to live long enough to evolve as an artist and do one’s finest work.
When I’m writing a book, I don’t have any responsibility to anyone. I’m solitary. I’m writing on my own. I write by hand. And I write every day. I mean, it’s part of my daily discipline.
I just do my work, and I work every day, and my ambition is just to do something better than I last did.
I dreamed of having a book of my own, of writing one that I could put on a shelf.
If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s not to be so judgmental of other people.
Maybe I’ll be 48 and die in the gutter in Paris.
I always enjoyed doing transgender songs.
The Bible is very resonant. It has everything: creation, betrayal, lust, poetry, prophecy, sacrifice. All great things are in the Bible, and all great writers have drawn from it and more than people realise, whether Shakespeare, Herman Melville or Bob Dylan.
A lot of children don’t have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester.
Nothing is a hobby – each discipline is its own world with its own high standards. Of course, every artist has ‘minor works’ that they do, but I don’t think I have any ‘minor disciplines.’
As far as I’m concerned, being any gender is a drag.
I wrote every day. I don’t think I could have written ‘Just Kids’ had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.
My parents were very humanistic, but where we lived was not the cultural center of the world. Hardly. So I came to New York for two reasons: to find my own kin and also to get a job. And that’s what I came to New York for in ’67.
I’m a human being, I’m a friend, I’m a mom, I’m a writer, and I’m an artist. I do play electric guitar and all of that, but in the end, I’m just a person.
When I did ‘Horses,’ I never expected to make another album.
The thing is that any sophistication I have, aesthetically, comes from ‘Vogue’ and ‘Harper’s Bazaar.’ In the ’60s, I never missed an issue, even if I had to steal to get them.
Robert Mapplethorpe, I met in 1967. He was a student at Pratt, though even as a student a fully formed artist. We went through many things in our life together. He became my loved one, then my best friend.
I have great respect for my parents. I got such beautiful things from both of them. It doesn’t mean that we didn’t have our rough times, but they were remarkable people who were open-minded, creative and hard-working, and had great senses of humor.
