To say one is revolutionary is a little like saying one is a Zen Buddhist - if you say you are, you probably aren't. Lawrence Ferlinghetti More Quotes by Lawrence Ferlinghetti More Quotes From Lawrence Ferlinghetti If you're too open-minded; your brains will fall out. Lawrence Ferlinghetti sarcastic witty funny Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone. Lawrence Ferlinghetti graffiti poetry heart Our government is a bird with two right wings... They're devoted to the perpetuation & spread of corporate capitalism. Lawrence Ferlinghetti government wings two I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder Lawrence Ferlinghetti renaissance wonder forever I was on television a couple of years ago and the reporter asked me, "How does it feel being on mainstream media? It's not often poets get on mainstream media." I said, "Well I think you're the dominant media, the dominant culture, but you're not the mainstream media. The mainstream media is still the high culture of intellectuals: writers, readers, editors, librarians, professors, artists, art critics, poets, novelists, and people who think. They are the mainstream culture, even though you may be the dominant culture." Lawrence Ferlinghetti couple art thinking Poetry is a naked woman, a naked man, and the distance between them. Lawrence Ferlinghetti naked distance men If you would be a poet, write living newspapers. Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance for bullshit. Lawrence Ferlinghetti editors writing believe Make your mind learn its way around the heart. Lawrence Ferlinghetti mind heart way If you're going to be a writer you should sit down and write in the morning, and keep it up all day, every day. Charles Bukowski, no matter how drunk he got the night before or no matter how hungover he was, the next morning he was at his typewriter. Every morning. Holidays, too. He'd have a bottle of whiskey with him to wake up with, and that's what he believed. That's the way you became a writer: by writing. When you weren't writing, you weren't a writer. Lawrence Ferlinghetti holiday writing morning We have seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by boredom at poetry readings. Lawrence Ferlinghetti boredom our-generation reading Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately. Lawrence Ferlinghetti fascists freedom-of-speech world I am waiting for the lost music to sound again in a new rebirth of wonder. Lawrence Ferlinghetti waiting sound wonder Poetry must be capable of answering the challenge of apocalytpic times, even if this means sounding apocaltypic. Lawrence Ferlinghetti ifs challenges mean I once started out to walk around the world but ended up in Brooklyn, that Bridge was too much for me. Lawrence Ferlinghetti brooklyn bridges world We have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace. Lawrence Ferlinghetti consciousness way world The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it. Lawrence Ferlinghetti states world The art has to make it on its own, without explanations, and it’s the same for poetry. If the poem or the painting has to be explained, then it’s a failure in communication. Lawrence Ferlinghetti painting communication art Beauty stands and waits Lawrence Ferlinghetti defying waiting beauty Poets, come out of your closets, Open your windows, open your doors, You have been holed up too long in your closed worlds... Poetry should transport the public/to higher places/than other wheels can carry it. Lawrence Ferlinghetti doors long world 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
