Ferlinghetti Best Quotes & Sayings

Souls dance undressed/ together/ and like loiterers/ on the fringes of a fair/ we ogle the unobtainable/ imagined mystery/ Yet away around on the far side/ like a stage door of a circus tent/ is a wide vent in the battlements/ where even elephants/ waltz thru
pg. 31// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

It was a face which darkness could kill
in an instant
a face as easily hurt
by laughter or light
'We think differently at night'
she told me once
lying back languidly
And she would quote Cocteau
'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say
'whom I am constantly shocking'
Then she would smile and look away
light a cigarette for me
sigh and rise
and stretch
her sweet anatomy
let fall a stocking — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

And I am waiting/ for Alice in Wonderland/ to retransmit to me/ her total dream of innocence
pg. 52// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

In Goya's greatest scenes we seem to see
the people of the world
exactly at the moment when
they first attained the title of
'suffering humanity — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Watching the world walk by
in its curious shoes
pg. 61// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say
'whom I am
constantly shocking — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am going where turtles win
I am going
where conmen puke and die
Down the sad esplanades
of the official world. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe for anarchy — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Cast up
the heart flops over
gasping 'Love'
a foolish fish which tries to draw
its breath from flesh of air
And no one there to hear its death
among the sad bushes
where the world rushes by
in a blather of asphalt and delay — 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

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

And the Blue Angels are coming back to scare the local population. I remember seeing old Vietnamese women ducking under the benches in Washington Square; they thought they were back in the war. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation - oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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

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

The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors; everything depends on the money. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

And heard the green birds singing/ from the other side of silence
pg. 36// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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

No, I didn't become disenchanted. I just couldn't paint like them. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I wish to descend in the social scale.
High society is low society.
I am a social climber
climbing downward
And the descent is difficult.
(- Junkman's Obbligato) — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I have seen giraffes in junglejims
their necks like love
wound around the iron circumstances
of the world. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Fuck Art, let's Dance! — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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

Make your mind learn its way around the heart. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I flew too near the sun
and my wax wings fell off
pg. 62// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Let us arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree
and live the true blue simple life
of wisdom and wonderment
where all things grow
straight up
aslant and singing
in the yellow sun
poppies out of cowpods
thinking angels out of turds.
I must arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree
way up behind the broken words
and woods of Arcady. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I see a similarity
between dogs and me.
Dogs are the true observers
walking up and down the world
thru the Molloy country. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poetry is the shortest distance between two humans. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti