Allen Ginsberg Quotes

Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.

Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does.

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.

America, I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.

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.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.

I write poetry because it’s the way I can be most honest with myself.

The only thing that can defeat you is your own mind.

Don’t follow leaders; watch the parkin’ meters.

To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.

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.

There is no life higher than the grasstops of America.

What’s sacred? Of course, I’m not going to tell you what’s sacred. I’m going to tell you what’s not sacred.

The only way to gain your sanity is to acknowledge your own insanity.

The writer’s role is to disturb the peace.

Allen Ginsberg Quotes part 2

A supermarket is a place where you avenge yourself for all the humility and modernized slavery of the town and the stress of modern life.

I don’t think it’s the function of art to be pleasing. If you want comforting, you should have therapy.

Poetry is the one place where you can pick the world apart and walk away with the pieces, cherished.

I didn’t grow up with any specific religious affiliation, but I did grow up with an awareness of the power of poetry as a spiritual tool.

The aim of the poet is to achieve the truthful.

Poverty is hell. Poverty is hell for all women and for their boys.

I’m writing my own goddamn poem, not talking to you to give you a chance to dominate me. You told me I was going to dominate you. I thought I’d let you dominate me.

What is prophecy? It’s nothing. It’s hope. It’s coordination’s hope of liberation. But parallel with hope goes stifled despair.

Hope is America’s whisper.

If you’re playing too many parties, you’re playing too many parties.

I might as well begin by saying I have a serious censorship problem in relation to my own poetry.

You have the right to kill me, but you do not have the right to judge me.

Strange now to think of you floating in the haze of heaven.

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

I don’t feel great about kids. They’re not me.

This is the shambolic Heaven which I love.

America is an ignorant nation.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.

Art is means not ends.

I reiterate my sincere belief that Christianity is a mass sedative.

Literature offers the thrill of minds of great gusto engaged in the company of other souls that are equally lively and have kindred aims.

Schools don’t teach people to think.

Under the tumbling wall of the abortion clinic’s doom, under the watchful eyes of the vicious Shiah scum.

Don’t let the sun go down on you, without help if it does.

An air of importance stands on the open field, faithful instructions.

Why isn’t everybody holy? Death.

Sometimes the subject matter is so personal to me that I don’t want to submit it to the typical reaction.

I cry for all those young people who have been let down by false education.

I’m a thoroughgoing conservative; I’ve voted Republican myself and intend to do so again. Good taste unsieved by an imagination does not make art.