Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations. Lawrence Ferlinghetti More Quotes by Lawrence Ferlinghetti More Quotes From Lawrence Ferlinghetti In Plato's republic, poets were considered subversive, a danger to the republic. I kind of relish that role. So I see my present role as a gadfly, to use my soapbox to promote my various ideas and obsesions. Lawrence Ferlinghetti republic plato ideas When you're young, everything seems like a romance. At 96, I can still feel romantic about publishing young unknown writers. Lawrence Ferlinghetti romance young feels There is an ecstatic mechanism in birds that makes them fly upwards in spite of worms. Lawrence Ferlinghetti worms spite bird Constantly risking absurdity and death whenever he performs above the heads of his audience, the poet, like an acrobat, climbs on rhyme to a high wire of his own making. Lawrence Ferlinghetti rhyming wire poet Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace' One grand boulevard with trees with one grand cafe in sun with strong black coffee in very small cups. One not necessarily very beautiful man or woman who loves you. One fine day. Lawrence Ferlinghetti coffee strong beautiful Today America's on the wrong side of the world revolution. What I mean by that is, the world revolution is the people's revolution, the liberation movements in all the third world countries, which when everyone tries to get started the U.S. stops. Lawrence Ferlinghetti trying mean country 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. Lawrence Ferlinghetti independent ties book I'm reading a book about Romaine Brooks, a wonderful painter from early in the last century. Lawrence Ferlinghetti lasts reading book Anyone who saw Nagasaki would suddenly realize that they'd been kept in the dark by the United States government as to what atomic bombs can do. Lawrence Ferlinghetti bombs government dark Invent a new language anyone can understand. Lawrence Ferlinghetti creation language The future of publishing lies with the small and medium-sized presses, because the big publishers in New York are all part of huge conglomerates. Lawrence Ferlinghetti bigs new-york lying Southern California, where the American Dream came too true. Lawrence Ferlinghetti usa california dream Don't bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces. Lawrence Ferlinghetti masterpiece bows critics Communism wasn't a word that I thought of when I went to Cuba. The original Fidelistas were not Communists. They were graduate students at the university and law students. After the Fidelistas took over, they went to Washington and tried to get support from the U.S. government, which turned them down. They were in a desperate political and economic situation, so they took the offer from the Soviet Union. Communism was a matter of necessity. Lawrence Ferlinghetti political government law Poetry can change the world, just like any art can change the world, by changing consciousness. Of course this was the great slogan of the nineteen sixites hippies’ revolution—enlarge the area of consciousness, which quite often was done by psychedelic means. Lawrence Ferlinghetti hippie mean art This is all very nice, because the ideas that Jack and the Beat generation stood for are needed today more than ever. But I'm not so interested in nostalgia. I'm interested in the future. Lawrence Ferlinghetti nice today ideas I think if there's a great depression there might be some hope. Lawrence Ferlinghetti depression might thinking T.S. Eliot's influence was enormous on my generation. Much more than Ezra Pound. I actually had to put T.S. Eliot books out of the house because my poetry was so influenced. Everything I wrote sounded like Eliot. Lawrence Ferlinghetti generations house book For even bad poetry has relevance for what it does not say for what it leaves out. Lawrence Ferlinghetti relevance doe Almost every truly creative being alienated & expatriated in his own country Lawrence Ferlinghetti creative country
