350 Quotes by allen ginsberg

Poetry's role is to provide spontaneous individual candor as distinct from manipulation and brainwash.

Bob Dylan's one of the greatest blues singers of the western world; ancient art, on-the-spot improvisation, mind quickness, endless variation, classical formulae, prophetic vision, mighty wind-horse.

The suffering itself is not so bad; it's the resentment against suffering that is the real pain.

They [Nicaragua] haven't had elections because they are in a state of seige by the United States. They would have had elections if the U.S. had left them alone. But the U.S. has mounted a full scale war against them. So how can you ask them to behave normally?

We love to be hurt and we love to have our unhealing wounds opened and reopened again: we sit staring in the mirror of art, fascinated by our own deformities.

You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening. If you're grasping to get your own voice, you're making a strained attempt to talk, so it's a matter of just listening to yourself as you sound when you're talking about something that's intensely important to you.

There should be no distinction between what we write down, and what we really know.

The soul is innocent and immortal, it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse.

Candor disarms paranoia.