Lawrence Ferlinghetti Quotes

We have seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.

I am awaitingperpetually and forevera renaissance of wonder

Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.

If you're too open-minded your brains will fall out.

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations.

I once started outto walk around the worldbut ended up in Brooklyn,that Bridge was too much for me.

Decide if a poem is a question or a declaration, a meditation or an outcry.

Poetry is a naked woman, a naked man, and the distance between them.

Don't bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces.

[in the true mad north] of introspection,where 'falcons of the inner eye'dive and die, glimpsing in their dying fall, all life's memory of existence.

I didn’t know that painters and writers retired. They’re like soldiers – they just fade away.

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,and whose shepherds mislead them.Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.Pity the nation that raises not its voice,except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as heroand aims to rule the world with force and by torture.Pity the nation that knows no other language but its ownand no other culture but its own.Pity the nation whose breath is moneyand sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erodeand their freedoms to be washed away.My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy

Almost every truly creative being alienated & expatriated in his own country

Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace'One grand boulevard with treeswith one grand cafe in sunwith strong black coffee in very small cups.One not necessarily very beautifulman or woman who loves you.One fine day.

See it was like this when we waltz into this place.A couple of papish cats is doing an Aztec two-stepAnd I says Dad let's cutbut then this dame comes up behind me see and says you and me could really existWow I says Only the next day she has bad teeth and really hates poetry.

Don't patronize the chain bookstores. Every time I see some author scheduled to read and sign his books at a chain bookstore, I feel like telling him he's stabbing the independent bookstores in the back.