You can count on yourself. Your self is your best ally. You know who you are, even when sometimes it becomes a little blurry. Just go deeper.
Patti Smith
Pratt Institute Commencement 2010, 2010
इस उद्धरण के पीछे की कहानी
In the final stretch of her speech, Smith asked the fundamental question: 'What tools do we have? What can we count on?' Her answer was disarmingly simple — yourself. Not your degree, not your connections, not your talent, but the core sense of identity that persists even when everything else is uncertain. The acknowledgment that self-knowledge 'sometimes becomes a little blurry' was characteristic of Smith's honesty. She wasn't pretending that the path is always clear. She was saying that even in moments of confusion or self-doubt, there is a deeper knowing that you can access if you're willing to go looking for it. 'Just go deeper' — two words that captured decades of artistic and spiritual practice.