Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I didn__ know that painters and writers retired. They__e like soldiers _ they just fade away.

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.

[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.

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

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

I think if there's a great depression there might be some hope.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.

I am awaitingperpetually and forevera renaissance of wonder

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations.

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