In times of strife, we have our imagination, we have our creative impulse.

Patti Smith, dubbed the “punk poet laureate,” first became known for her music, but she also lets her creative impulses flow out in prose and poetry. (She won the 2010 National Book Award for her sublimely touching memoir "Just Kids.") For Smith, creative expression is a way to deal with life, a type of therapy, providing a release that can turn a negative into something positive. Echoing the philosopher Alain de Botton, who said that “art holds out the promise of inner wholeness,” Smith has described imagination and creativity as “more important than material things. They are the things that we should magnify.” Smith believes that every human being has a creative impulse. Whatever form it takes, we all have the right to exercise that impulse, and feel its benefit in times of strife.