Lawrence Ferlinghetti Quotes

Quotes about:

• Make your mind learn its way around the heart.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Heart, Mind, Way

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2007). “Poetry as Insurgent Art”, p.16, New Directions Publishing

  21 Copy quote

• I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Forever, Renaissance, Wonder

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1994). “These are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993”, p.104, New Directions Publishing

  33 Copy quote

• Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Heart, Poetry, Graffiti

  77 Copy quote

• The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  World, States

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Poetry as Insurgent Art [I am signaling you through the flames]”

  20 Copy quote

• I am waiting for the lost music to sound again in a new rebirth of wonder.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Waiting, Sound, Wonder

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1994). “These are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993”, p.103, New Directions Publishing

  33 Copy quote

• If you're too open-minded; your brains will fall out.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  148 Copy quote

• Poetry is a naked woman, a naked man, and the distance between them.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Distance, Men, Naked

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2007). “Poetry as Insurgent Art”, p.38, New Directions Publishing

  54 Copy quote

• Our government is a bird with two right wings... They're devoted to the perpetuation & spread of corporate capitalism.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Government, Wings, Two

  53 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Couple, Thinking

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  25 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, Writing, Editors

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2007). “Poetry as Insurgent Art”, p.4, New Directions Publishing

  42 Copy quote

• 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

  Morning, Writing, Holiday

  36 Copy quote

• It's much easier to consume the visual image than to read something.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Easier, Visuals, Visual Images

  5 Copy quote

• We have seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Reading, Our Generation, Boredom

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2001). “San Francisco Poems”, p.2, City Lights Books

  30 Copy quote

• Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Freedom Of Speech, World, Fascists

  34 Copy quote

• There is an ecstatic mechanism in birds that makes them fly upwards in spite of worms.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Bird, Worms, Spite

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1960). “Her”, p.24, New Directions Publishing

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Communication, Painting

  24 Copy quote

• 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

  Buddhist, Littles, Revolutionary

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2015). “Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1960-2013: Travel Journals 1950–2013”, p.311, W. W. Norton & Company

  25 Copy quote

• Invent a new language anyone can understand.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Language, Creation

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2007). “Poetry as Insurgent Art”, p.6, New Directions Publishing

  17 Copy quote

• As I get older I perceive Life has its tail in its mouth.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Tails, Mouths, Perceive

  1988 'Poet as Fisherman'.

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Populist Manifesto No. 1”

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Life, Beautiful, People

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1994). “These are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993”, p.73, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  World, Way, Consciousness

  32 Copy quote

• I once started out to walk around the world but ended up in Brooklyn, that Bridge was too much for me.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Bridges, Brooklyn, World

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1994). “These are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993”, p.107, New Directions Publishing

  14 Copy quote

• My country tears of thee.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Country, America, Tears

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1958). “A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems”, p.57, New Directions Publishing

  5 Copy quote

• Poetry must be capable of answering the challenge of apocalytpic times, even if this means sounding apocaltypic.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Mean, Challenges, Ifs

  Interview with Christopher Bollen, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 1, 2012.

  30 Copy quote

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