Allen Ginsberg > Quotes

“Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“I don't think there is any truth. There are only points of view. ”
― Allen Ginsberg

“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 angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems

“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. ”
― 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

“We're all golden sunflowers inside.”
― 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

“Whoever controls the media, the
images, controls the culture.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Our heads are round so thought can change direction”
― Allen Ginsberg

“I know too much and not enough”
― Allen Ginsberg

“I don't do anything with my life except romanticize and decay with indecision.”
― Allen Ginsberg, The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems, 1937-1952

“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

“Poets are damned… but see with the eyes of angels.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“I really believe, or want to believe, really I am nuts, otherwise I'll never be sane.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

“We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

“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

“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. And I’d like to keep living with someone — maybe even a man — and explore relationships that way. And cultivate my perceptions, cultivate the visionary thing in me. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“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,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war, ”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

“Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand
and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is
holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an
angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is
holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is
holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy
Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-
sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering
beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks
of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana
hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy
the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the
mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the
middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-
ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &
Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the
clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy
the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the
locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-
tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the
abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
kindness of the soul!”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

“I never dreamed the sea so deep,
The earth so dark; so long my sleep,
I have become another child.
I wake to see the world go wild.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“It isn't enough for your heart to break because everybody's heart is broken now.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

“To gain your own voice, forget about having it heard. Become a saint of your own province and your own consciousness.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Just because I like to suck cock doesn't make me any less American than Jesse Helms.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Everybody's serious but me.”
― 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 born.”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems

“Which way will the sunflower turn surrounded by millions of suns?”
― Allen Ginsberg, Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems