Allen Ginsberg Quotes

A naked lunch is natural to us
We eat reality sandwiches.
But allegories are so much lettuce.
Don't hide the madness.

America why are your libraries full of tears?

The closet door is open for me, where I left it, since I left it open, it has graciously stayed open.

Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then!

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

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.

Mind is shapely, Art is shapely.

No point writing when the spirit doth not lead.

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.

You know, the guys there were so beautiful — they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go Millions of daughters walk in the mud
Millions of children wash in the flood
A Million girls vomit & groan
Millions of families hopeless alone Millions of souls nineteen seventy one
homeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan

You were right, I suppose, in keeping your distance. I was too intent on self-fulfillment, and rather crude about it, with all my harlequinade and conscious manipulation of your pity.

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.

America, why are your libraries full of tears?

Don’t you see that I cannot be composed, I cannot reconcile myself, because there is no other reality but loneliness for me and before I am dragged back into isolation I will clasp and grasp and claw in fright even at you without consciousness — even I — and I am afraid that I cannot survive if I have to go on into myself.