Invent a new language anyone can understand. Lawrence Ferlinghetti More Quotes by Lawrence Ferlinghetti More Quotes From Lawrence Ferlinghetti We were just a one-room bookstore; we didn't have any money for lawyers. Lawrence Ferlinghetti bookstoreslawyerrooms Everything the Beats stood for was the opposite of the dominant culture today. Lawrence Ferlinghetti oppositestodayculture Western Civilization has been in a state of decline since the Edwardian age, say 1910. That was the height of Greco-Roman European civilization. Then there was the First World War. That was the beginning of the end. That civilization has been in a decline ever since. But from the American triumphalist point of view our wonderful electronic revolution is really the forefront of an ongoing wonderful civilization. Lawrence Ferlinghetti agewarworld See it was like this when we waltz into this place. A couple of papish cats is doing an Aztec two-step And I says Dad let's cut but then this dame comes up behind me see and says you and me could really exist Wow I says Only the next day she has bad teeth and really hates poetry. Lawrence Ferlinghetti dadcouplehate We'd like to just write nothing but lyric poetry. The trouble is, the individual is going along intent on his own personal gratifications and love affairs and financial affairs and everything else. But loping alongside him is this fascist lout who keeps trying to take over. And if you keep ignoring him, he gets bigger and bigger, so every once in a while the free individual has to turn away from his private pursuits and give this fascist lout a few clouts, and beat him down to size. Lawrence Ferlinghetti lyric-poetrywritinggiving In Goya's greatest scenes we seem to see Lawrence Ferlinghetti sufferinghumanitypeople I arrived in San Francisco in January 1951. After the Second World War, the population was so uprooted. Soldiers came back home for brief periods and took off again. So the population was very fluid, and suddenly it was as if the continent tilted west. The whole population slid west. It took 10 years for America to coalesce into a new culture. And the new culture happened in San Francisco, not New York. Lawrence Ferlinghetti new-yorkhomewar The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors; everything depends on the money. Lawrence Ferlinghetti editorslinesreal The paintings may communicate even better because people are lazy and they can look at a painting with less effort than they can read a poem. Lawrence Ferlinghetti lazyeffortpeople I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say 'whom I am constantly shocking Lawrence Ferlinghetti shockingangelfeels It's much easier to consume the visual image than to read something. Lawrence Ferlinghetti visual-imagesvisualseasier When I was a boy I was my father. Lawrence Ferlinghetti boysfather The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn't half so bad if it isn't you. Lawrence Ferlinghetti beautifullifepeople Well, I didn't know how to draw very well back then, in the '40s and '50s. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wellsknow-howdraws I certainly was surprised to be named Poet Laureate of this far-out city on the left side of the world, and I gratefully accept, for as I told the Mayor, "How could I refuse?" I'd rather be Poet Laureate of San Francisco than anywhere because this city has always been a poetic center, a frontier for free poetic life, with perhaps more poets and more poetry readers than any city in the world. Lawrence Ferlinghetti san-franciscocitiesworld You can publish a poem you think is a very important poem, and you don't hear a word from anyone. [...] You can publish a book of poetry by dropping it off a cliff and waiting to hear an echo. Quite often, you'll never hear a thing. So doing that, using older work, puts it in a context, and that sort of forces the reader to realize what its importance is-if it has any. Everything needs a context. You're not going to recognize a poet unless you have a context. Lawrence Ferlinghetti echoesbookthinking Paperbacks weren't considered real books in the book trade. Up till then it was just murder mysteries, potboilers, 25-cent pocket books sold in newsstands. When the New York publishers started publishing quality paperbacks, there was no place to buy them. Lawrence Ferlinghetti realnew-yorkbook I didn’t know that painters and writers retired. They’re like soldiers – they just fade away. Lawrence Ferlinghetti soldierretirementinspirational I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy Lawrence Ferlinghetti waitingwarworld [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. Lawrence Ferlinghetti eyememoriesfall
