Quotes by

Allen Ginsberg

America Im putting my queer shoulder to the wheel. – Allen Ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. – Allen Ginsberg

So I had a choice between going to a jail or going to a bughouse like a nice young middle-class student. So I chose to go to a very polite mental hospital. When I left eight months later, they said, You were never psychotic. You were just an average neurotic. – Allen Ginsberg

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

Marijuana is a useful catalyst for specific optical and aural aesthetic perceptions. I apprehended the structure of certain pieces of jazz and classical music in a new manner under the influence of marijuana, and these apprehensions have remained valid in years of normal consciousness. – Allen Ginsberg

Nobody saves America by sniffing cocaine,
jiggling your knees blankly in the rain.
When it snows in your nose
you catch cold in your brain. – Allen Ginsberg

Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather Boa! – Allen Ginsberg

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. Thats what poetry does. – Allen Ginsberg

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

I want people to bow as they see me and say he is gifted with poetry, he has seen the presence of the creator. – 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

My own experience is that a certain kind of genius among students is best brought out in bed. – Allen Ginsberg

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…. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence. – Allen Ginsberg