19 Allen Ginsberg Quotes That'll Encourage You To Love, Think, And Live Madly

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening.”

— Allen Ginsberg, ginsbergblog.blogspot.com

“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.”

— Allen Ginsberg, c250.columbia.edu

“I know too much and not enough.”

— Allen Ginsberg, barkokhba.chez.com

“Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“I really would like to stop working forever–never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I’m doing now–and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends. And I’d like to keep living with someone — maybe even a man — and explore…”

— Allen Ginsberg, writing.upenn.edu

“Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!”

— Allen Ginsberg, nlcatp.org

“I don’t think there is any truth. There are only points of view.”

— Allen Ginsberg, nlcatp.org

“I really believe, or want to believe, really I am nuts, otherwise I’ll never be sane.”

— Allen Ginsberg, nlcatp.org

“Nobody knows whether we were catalysts or invented something, or just the froth riding on a wave of its own. We were all three, I suppose.”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“It isn't enough for your heart to break because everybody's heart is broken now.”

— Allen Ginsberg, en.wikiquote.org

“[Discussing his, and the other Beat Writer's style of writing poetry] First thought, best thought.”

— Allen Ginsberg, en.wikiquote.org

“We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter.”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“I don't do anything with my life except romanticize and decay with indecision.”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“My books piled up before me for my use waiting in space where I placed them, they haven't disappeared, time's left its remnants and qualities for me to use—my words piled up, my texts, my manuscripts, my loves.”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“The closet door is open for me, where I left it, since I left it open, it has graciously stayed open.”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“Who can live with this Consciousness and not wake frightened at sunrise?”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“The universe is mad, slightly mad.”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com

“Not even the human imagination satisfies the endless emptiness of the soul.”

— Allen Ginsberg, amazon.com