Allen Ginsberg Quotes

You know, the guys there were so beautiful - they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Let go of the spirit of the departed, and continue the celebration of your own life. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I do not wish to escape to myself, I wish to escape from myself. I wish to obliterate my consciousness and my knowledge of independent existence, my guilts, my secretiveness. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? ~ Allen Ginsberg

Steak swallowers zonked on Television! ~ Allen Ginsberg

[Allen] Ginsberg totally helped that out. He was the best sales person. He was the most pop. They are still shocking and relevant, especially [William] Burroughs. ~ Yony Leyser

Now the Great Fear's rolled round the world and washes over Newspaper Grey air ~ Allen Ginsberg

Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private. ~ Allen Ginsberg

America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes? ~ Allen Ginsberg

Brainwash cried Romney, the Governor of Pollution ~ Allen Ginsberg

My style of performance poetry came from the beatniks, Allen Ginsberg. ~ Patti Smith

The Jews always complained, kvetching about false gods, and erected the
biggest false God, Jehovah, in middle of western civilization. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg was a world authority on the writing of William Blake, and had an incredible knowledge of classic literature and world politics. ~ David Amram

The fact to which we have got to cling, as to a lifebelt, is that it is possible to be a normal decent person and yet be fully alive. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Recent history is the record of one vast conspiracy to impose one level of mechanical consciousness on mankind. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I shudder, I see the love, I'm doomed, my heart melts again - can't stand not to be in love, can't stand not to be melting with real tenderness, childlike need sweetnesses, that's what's wrong with me. ~ Allen Ginsberg

The whole blear world of smoke and twisted steel around my head in a railroad car, and my mind wandering past the rust into futurity: I saw the sun go down in a carnal and primeval world, leaving darkness to cover my railroad train because the other side of the world was waiting for dawn. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I believe that we are put here in human form to decipher the hieroglyphs of love and suffering. And, there is no degree of love or intensity of feeling that does not bring with it the possibility of a crippling hurt. But, it is a duty to take that risk and love without reserve or defense. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I write poetry because I want to be alone and want to talk to people. ~ Allen Ginsberg

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Machine chaos on Earth, Too many bodies, mouths bleeding on every Continent ~ Allen Ginsberg

And he imagines cars
and rides them in his dreams,
so lonely growing up among
the imaginary automobiles
and dead souls of Tarrytown
to create
out of his own imagination
the beauty of his wild
forebears - a mythology
he cannot inherit. ~ Allen Ginsberg

The kindly search for growth, the gracious desire to exist of the flowers, my near ecstasy at existing ong them
The privilege to witness my existence - you too must seek the sun... ~ Allen Ginsberg

We are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness. Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of the angels. ~ William Carlos Williams

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe? ~ Allen Ginsberg

Ginsberg turned out to be depressingly prescient when, after a heated argument with Norman Podhoretz in 1958, he yelled, 'We'll get you through your children!' For countless American families, that turned out to be only too true. ~ Roger Kimball

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? ~ Allen Ginsberg

Ed Friedman: [talking about Patti Smith] One time she told me, "Allen Ginsberg thought I was a cute boy and he tried to pick me up, so I said, "LOOK AT THE TITS, ALLEN! NOTICE THE TITS! ~ Legs McNeil

A missle lost Unprogrammed ~ Allen Ginsberg

Significant timeless
reflex in sepulchre:
apparitions of immortality
consumed inward,
waiting openmouthed
in the fireless darkness. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I feel my life is sterile, I am unbloomed, unused, I have nothing I can have that I will ever want, only some love, only dearness and tenderness, to make me weep. I am moved now and sad and unhappy beyond cold unhappiness, beyond any inconvenience that will cause you by my affection. ~ Allen Ginsberg

So he said, 'What would you like to do? What is your desire really?' I said, 'Doctor, I don't think you're going to find this very healthy and clear, but I really would like to stop working forever–never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I'm doing now–and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends. ~ Allen Ginsberg

So I dream nightly of an embarcation,
captains, captains,
iron passageways, cabin lights,
Brooklyn across the waters,
the great dull boat, visitors, farewells,
the blurred vast sea--
one trip a lifetime's loss or gain :

as Europe is my own imagination
--many shall see her,
many shall not--
though it's only the old familiar world
and not some abstract mystical dream.

And in a moment of previsioning sleep
I see that continent in rain,
black streets, old night, a
fading monument . . .

And a long journey unaccomplished
yet, on antique seas
rolling in gray barren dunes under
the world's waste of light
toward ports of childish geography
the rusty ship will
harbor in . . . ~ Allen Ginsberg

If I were stranded in the woods with nothing to eat but nuts, berries, and the complete works of Allen Ginsberg, I'd eat the latter first, because at least the nuts and berries might be inspirational to my poetry. ~ Jarod Kintz

...my man world will blow up ~ Allen Ginsberg

The Rolling Stones were an inkling towards an appreciation of the unity of music, dance and words. Any of the black R&B people who had a stage show that involved dancing, music and words did the same thing, except that I thought Jagger's words were good, his music was good and his dancing was good. I spoke to him about Blake and tried to get him to sing [William] Blake's The Grey Monk, to use his words as lyrics. He didn't do it. In the end, I did it myself. ~ Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit-
man, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees
with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images,
I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of
your enumerations! ~ Allen Ginsberg

Man is no form no mighty molecule no just
idea alone - all that Thing -
I feel man tender radiance at Heart between
breast and belly, that physical place
where the Self urges - delicate sensation ~ Allen Ginsberg

Earth pollution identical with Mind pollution, consciousness Pollution identical with filthy sky ~ Allen Ginsberg

Another lover hits the universe. The circle is broken. But with death comes rebirth. And like all lovers and sad people, I am a poet. ~ Allen Ginsberg

The universe is mad, slightly mad. ~ Allen Ginsberg

YOUR NAME IS WRITTEN IN HEAVEN ~ Allen Ginsberg

I eat a catfish sandwich
with onions and red sauce
20c. (Havana 1953) ~ Allen Ginsberg

By the 'best minds' Ginsberg meant the dropouts, poets, musicians and world travellers, as opposed to doctors and lawyers. He understood that Wrong Planet people tend to pick up better communication skills, have greater visualisation, and can adapt to changing circumstances quicker than Rag, Tag & Bobtail. ~ Karl Wiggins

Homosexuals are delicate and bad poetry is delicate and [Allen] Ginsberg turned the tables by making homosexual poetry strong poetry, almost manly poetry; but in the long run, the homo will remain the homo and not the poet. ~ Charles Bukowski

Regarding R. H. Blyth: Blyth's four volume Haiku became especially popular at this time [1950's] because his translations were based on the assumption that the haiku was the poetic expression of Zen. Not surprisingly, his books attracted the attention of the Beat school, most notably writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac, all of whom had a prior interest in Zen. ~ Reginald Horace Blyth

I'm with you in Rockland, where we are great writers on this same dreadful typewriter. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I had been up all night with my old friend Allen Ginsberg, the poet, and we had both slid into the abyss of whiskey madness and full-bore substance abuse. It was wonderful, ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Unless Chase Bank quits I prophesy blood violence ~ Allen Ginsberg

Central Intelligence cutting Meo opium fields! China Lobby copping poppies in Burma! How long this Addict government support our oil-burner matter-habit ~ Allen Ginsberg

Nobody wants to hear about your feelings, darling, tell me what you see! ~ Allen Ginsberg

Poetry's role is to provide spontaneous individual candor as distinct from manipulation and brainwash. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Well, while I'm here I'll do the work - and what's the work? To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Anger falling asleep at the heart ~ Allen Ginsberg

Washing terror-waves round earth-globe back to suburb TV home night kitchens ~ Allen Ginsberg

The Package is the Product, onomatopoeticized ~ Allen Ginsberg

Be careful, you are not in Wonderland. I've heard the strange madness long growing in your soul. But you are fortunate in your ignorance, in your isolation. You who have suffered, find where love hides. Give, share, lose - lest we die, unbloomed. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Slaves of Plastic! Leather-shoe chino-pants prisoners! Haircut junkies! Dacron-shiffers! ~ Allen Ginsberg

I am the defense early warning radar system
I see nothing but bombs ~ Allen Ginsberg

Song
Allen Ginsberg

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human -
looks out of the heart
burning with purity -
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love -
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
- cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

- must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye -
**
yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was bor ~ Allen Ginsberg

The real America that Whitman proclaimed and Thoreau decoded. ~ Allen Ginsberg

One must verge on the unknown, write toward the truth hitherto unrecognizable of one's own sincerity, including the avoidable beauty of doom, shame, and embarrassment, that very area of personal self-recognition,(detailed individual is universal remember) which formal conventions, internalized, keep us from discovering in ourselves and others ~ Allen Ginsberg

America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? ~ Allen Ginsberg

What sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination ~ Allen Ginsberg

Night is the wonderful opportunity to take rest, to forgive, to smile, to get ready for all the battles that you have to fight tomorrow. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village. downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking, talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues shout blind on the phonograph ~ Allen Ginsberg

Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul! ~ Allen Ginsberg

You too must seek the sun... ~ Allen Ginsberg

Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear ~ Allen Ginsberg

Who dreamt
and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space
through images juxtaposed,
and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images
and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun
and dash of consciousness together
jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus
to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human
prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame ~ Allen Ginsberg

Ultimately Warhol's private moral reference was to the supreme kitsch of the Catholic church. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Hairy Mammal whaddya want ~ Allen Ginsberg

the day of the publication of the true literature of the American body will be day of Revolution
the revolution of the sexy lamb ~ Allen Ginsberg

Fortunately art is a community effort - a small but select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the solitudes of the flesh. ~ Allen Ginsberg

That's the place where the books are made, I thought. That's also where Allen Ginsberg offered a friend of mine a Fig Newton outside a deli in the East Village. By the time I first came to New York, I was already half in love. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather boa! ~ Allen Ginsberg

You can't photograph everything. ~ Allen Ginsberg

When you notice something clearly and see it vividly, it then becomes sacred. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I had a moment of clarity, saw the feeling in the heart of things, walked out to the garden crying. ~ Allen Ginsberg

What prophecy actually is is not that you actually know that the bomb will fall in 1942. It's that you know and feel something that somebody knows and feels in a hundred years. And maybe articulate it in a hint - a concrete way that they can pick up on in a hundred years. ~ Allen Ginsberg

My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. ~ Allen Ginsberg

The best thing about being famous is that it makes it easier to get laid. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I think it was when I ran into Kerouac and Burroughs - when I was 17 - that I realized I was talking through an empty skull ... I wasn't thinking my own thoughts or saying my own thoughts. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Since art is merely and ultimately self-expressive, we conclude that the fullest art, the most individual, uninfluenced, unrepressed, uninhibited expression of art is true expression and the true art. ~ Allen Ginsberg

If I had a soul I sold it for pretty words If I had a body I used it up spurting my essence Allen Ginsberg warns you dont follow my path to extinction ~ Allen Ginsberg

Tell your secrets. [In reply to the question "How does one become a prophet?"] ~ Allen Ginsberg

War is good business Invest your son ~ Allen Ginsberg

The grime was no man's grime but death and human locomotives,
all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt - industrial - modern - all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown
and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos - all these
entangled in your mummied roots - and you there standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form! ~ Allen Ginsberg

How sick i am! that thought Always comes to me with horror. Is it this strange for everybody? But such fugitive feelings have always been my metier. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I've listened to and know Allen Ginsberg music and met him a couple of times, but I don't have any strong statements to make. ~ William S. Burroughs

Taxi September along Jessore Road Oxcart skeletons drag charcoal load past watery fields thru rain flood ruts Dung cakes on treetrunks, plastic-roof huts Wet processions Families walk Stunted boys big heads don't talk Look bony skulls & silent round eyes Starving black angels in human disguise. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Soul identical to each to each ... look in my eyes and speak to yourself, that makes me
everybody's lover ~ Allen Ginsberg

Who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism ~ Allen Ginsberg

Inside skull vast as outside skull ~ Allen Ginsberg

I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Forty feet long sixty feet high hotel
Covered with old gray for buzzing flies
Eye like mango flowing orange pus
Ears Durga people vomiting in their sleep
Got huge legs a dozen buses move inside Calcutta
Swallowing mouthfuls of dead rats
Mangy dogs bark out of a thousand breasts
Garbage pouring from its ass behind alleys
Always pissing yellow Hooghly water
Bellybutton melted Chinatown brown puddles
Coughing lungs Sound going down the sewer
Nose smell a big gray Bidi
Heart bumping and crashing over tramcar tracks
Covered with a hat of cloudy iron
Suffering water buffalo head lowered
To pull the huge cart of year uphill ~ Allen Ginsberg

Everybody's serious but me. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Candor disarms paranoia. ~ Allen Ginsberg