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Ginsberg Quotes

Browse 52 quotes about Ginsberg.

Ginsberg Quotes

“Without much ado, Ginsberg, along with Orlovsky and Fakir, arrived one Sunday at the Coffee House looking for Bengali poets. The cafe was abuzz with writers, editors and journalists. Each group had a different table—some had joined two or more tables and brought together different conversations on one plate. But somehow, everyone seemed to have an inchoate understanding of the business of war and what it spelled out for them in the end.”

CalcuttaGinsbergMalaySamirCoffeehouseChaibasaHungryalists
Book:The Hungryalists
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“Now as the train moved towards Calcutta, Malay felt as if his life was coming full circle. It had been a strange decision to visit the city at a time when post-Partition vomit and excreta was splattered on Calcutta streets. Marked by communal violence, anger and unemployment, the streets smelled of hunger and disillusionment. Riots were still going on. The wound of a land divided lingered, refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) continued to arrive in droves. And since they did not know where to go, they occupied the pavements, laced the streets with their questions, frustrations and a deep need to be recognised as more than an inconvenient presence on tree-lined avenues. The feeling of being uprooted was everywhere. Political leaders decided that the second phase of the five-year planning needed to see the growth of heavy industries. The land required for such industries necessitated the evacuation of farmers. Devoid of their ancestral land and in the absence of a proper rehabilitation plan, those evicted wandered aimlessly around the cities—refugees by another name. Calcutta had assumed different dimensions in Malay’s mind. The smell of the Hooghly wafted across Victoria Memorial and settled like an unwanted cow on its lawns. Unsung symphonies spilled out of St Paul’s Cathedral on lonely nights; white gulls swooped in on grey afternoons and looked startling against the backdrop of the rain-swept edifice. In a few years, Naxalbari would become a reality, but not yet. Like an infant Kali with bohemian fantasies, Calcutta and its literature sprouted a new tongue – that of the Hungry Generation. Malay, like Samir and many others, found himself at the helm of this madness, and poetry seemed to lick his body and soul in strange colours. As a reassurance of such a huge leap of faith, Shakti had written to Samir: Bondhu Samir, We had begun by speaking of an undying love for literature, when we suddenly found ourselves in a dream. A dream that is bigger than us, and one that will exist in its capacity of right and wrong and beyond that of our small worlds. Bhalobasha juriye Shakti”

BeatsCalcuttaGinsbergShaktiMalaySamirChaibasa
Book:The Hungryalists
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“What happens to a highbrow literary culture when its fault lines-along caste, class and gender-are brutally exposed? What happens to the young iconoclasts who dare to speak and write about these issues openly? Is there such a thing as a happy ending for revolutionaries? Or are they doomed to be forever relegated to the footnotes of history? This is the never-before-told true story of the Hungry Generation (or 'the Hungryalists')-a group of barnstorming, anti-establishment poets, writers and artists in Bengal in the 1960s. Braving social boycott, ridicule and arrests, the Hungryalists changed the literary landscape of Bengal (and many South Asian countries) forever. Along the way, they also influenced iconic poets, such as Allen Ginsberg, who struck up a lifelong friendship with the Hungryalists.”

LifePoetryRevolutionProtestDissentGinsbergCountercultureMalaySixtiesSamir
Book:The Hungryalists
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“I never did know exactly what was meant by the term "The Beats," but let's say that the original meeting, association, comradeship of Allen Ginsberg, myself, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, who's not here, Lew Welch, who's dead, Gregory Corso, for me, to a somewhat lesser extent (I never knew Gregory as well as the others) did embody a criticism and a vision which we shared in various ways, and then went our own ways for many years.”

KnowsWayYearsWellsTermVisionBeatsCriticismOriginalsMeetingsVariousAssociationPhilipComradeshipGinsberg
Author:Gary Snyder
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“When [Allen] Ginsberg and I founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics - that was 1974 - we referred to it by a term used by Sufi thinker Hakim Bey, as "temporary autonomous zones." That for me sums up some of Whitman's sense of a community of likeminded people with a certain kind of adhesiveness and connection and sharing of this ethos.”

PeopleKindSchoolUsedCertainTermCommunityConnectionsZoneTemporaryThinkerSufiAutonomousEthosGinsberg
Author:Anne Waldman
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“It's tough to make funny films. And the truth is, with this process, especially if you write your own movie, then you're giving three years of your life to it. And so, I just have to be sure that when I embark on it that I'm happy to think that in three years' time I'm going to be sitting in a room on the tenth floor of an odd office building at Ginsberg Libby talking about it. So I'm keen not to jump into it too quickly and just make sure it's something that I really want.”

IfsThinkingWantGivingWritingYearsFilmThreeProcessRoomsTalkingBuildingTruth IsOfficeSittingToughOddThree YearsGinsbergWrite Your OwnOffice Buildings
Author:Dan Mazer
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“People keep telling me about the white race and the black race - and it really doesn't make sense. I played Miami, met a fellow two shades darker than me - and his name was Ginsberg! Took my place in two sit-in demonstrations - nobody knew the difference. The he tried for a third lunch counter and blew the whole bit ... asked for blintzes.”

PeopleTwoWholeNamesBitsBlackDifferencesWhiteRaceMetsThirdsFellowsMake SenseShadeLunchDemonstrationMiamiWhite RaceGinsbergBlack Race
Author:Dick Gregory
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“I was photographing the photographer Brassaï. He had very prominent eyes, like a frog's. As I focused my lens, he brought his hand up and pretended to focus his eye. It was a joke, but it added mystery to the picture. There's a sense of action in a very small world. Or with Allen Ginsberg there were people smoking cigarettes and in the smoke there's a sense of motion. It makes much out of very little.”

PeopleWorldLittlesHandsEyeActionFocusMysteryJokesPhotographerFocusedSmokeHis EyesSmokingCigaretteLensesFrogsProminentHands UpSmoking CigarettesSmall WorldGinsberg
Author:John Loengard
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“I prefer formal techniques, and use sonnets and rhyme, any manner of scheme to give a shape and order-of feeling as well as argument-to a poem. But all my life, I've also been a person who's made his bed in the morning and picks up the bath mat. That's what I mean by temperament. Whether genetic or acquired, I have a disposition to arrangements. One is born with this, as if with blue eyes or a weak heart. Do you think Allen Ginsberg ever put the cap back on his toothpaste?”

IfsThinkingGivingWellsHeartMeanPersonsMadeUseFeelingsEyeOrderBornMorningShapesBedPicksArgumentWeakBlueTechniqueSchemesFormalArrangementsRhymeDispositionTemperamentBathsSonnetCapsBlue EyesToothpasteGinsberg
Author:J. D. McClatchy
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“I’m too young and ridiculous a person to speak for my generation, but I’d be happy to talk about my own experiences as a generation Y writer. I was raised by a generation of hippies. Throughout my childhood, teachers urged me to fight the establishment. My English teacher assigned Ginsberg and Kerouac and declared Bob Dylan “a genius.” My science teacher told me that television was “the new opiate of the masses” and bragged about never having owned one. My drama teacher made us perform Beckett.”

PersonsMadeYoungFightingSpeakMy OwnTeacherGenerationsChildhoodTelevisionGeniusDramaMassRaisedRidiculousEstablishmentBobDylanHippieMy GenerationEnglish TeacherBeckettOpiatesGinsbergScience TeacherGeneration Y
Author:Simon Rich
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“The right place for the League of Nations is not Geneva or the Hague, Ascher Ginsberg has dreamed of a Temple on Mount Zion where the representatives of all nations should dedicate a Temple of Eternal Peace. Only when all peoples of the earth shall go to THIS temple as pilgrims is eternal peace to become a fact.”

ShouldFactsEarthNationsEternalJewLeagueTemplesRepresentativesRight PlacePilgrimGenevaGinsbergZionLeague Of NationsEternal Peace
Author:Ahad Ha'am
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“Bob Dylan was really mad with my wife. I had asked by Rolling Stone - the only assignment I ever had for them - to do a story on the Rolling Thunder Review, which was Bob Dylan, Alan Ginsberg, Joan Baez and a host of stars. My wife, some weeks before, had written in The New York Times that The Kid wasn't The Kid anymore and he wasn't all that winning anymore.”

StoriesKidsWinningStarsWifeWrittenWeekNew YorkStonesMadMy WifeReviewsHostBobRollingThunderDylanNew York TimesAssignmentsRolling StonesGinsberg
Author:Nat Hentoff
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“I visited Paterson many years ago - 20 some years ago as a kind of day trip because of William Carlos Williams, because of Allen Ginsberg having lived there. And I went to the Great Falls and sat really in the exact same spot as Adam Driver does as Paterson. And I walked around the factory buildings, and I was rereading - I was reading at the time the epic length poem "Paterson" by Williams.”

YearsKindDoeFallReadingBuildingYears AgoSpotsSatLengthDriversAdamFactoriesEpicGinsbergRereading
Author:Jim Jarmusch
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“I wasn't trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn't have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people.”

PeopleTryingMadeLawTermHeardWorstMade ItAlliesOutlawGaugesBurroughsGinsbergGonzo Journalism
Book:Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the F
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“The Beat Generation, that was a vision that we had, John Clellon Holmes and I, and Allen Ginsberg in an even wilder way, in the late forties, of a generation of crazy, illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new way.”

WayAmericaBeautifulVisionGenerationsCrazySeriousLateBeatsUglyRisingFortyNew WaysHolmesHipsterRaggedRoamingWilderHitchhikingBeat GenerationGinsberg
Book:The Portable Jack Kerouac
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“[Polythene Pam] was me, remembering a little event with a woman in Jersey, and a man who was England's answer to Allen Ginsberg, who gave us our first exposure - this is so long - you can't deal with all this. You see, everything triggers amazing memories. I met him when we were on tour and he took me back to his apartment and I had a girl and he had one he wanted me to meet. He said she dressed up in polythene, which she did. She didn't wear jackboots and kilts, I just sort of elaborated. Perverted sex in a polythene bag. Just looking for something to write about.”

MenWritingFirstsLittlesLongSaidWantedRememberGirlSexMemoriesAnswersDealsEventsMetsDrugEnglandBagsApartmentExposureJerseyTriggersDressed UpGinsbergKilts
Author:John Lennon
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“Regarding R. H. Blyth: Blyth's four volume Haiku became especially popular at this time [1950's] because his translations were based on the assumption that the haiku was the poetic expression of Zen. Not surprisingly, his books attracted the attention of the Beat school, most notably writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac, all of whom had a prior interest in Zen.”

BookSchoolPoetryInterestAttentionFourExpressionBeatsAssumptionPoeticVolumeTranslationsHaikuGaryGinsberg
Author:Reginald Horace Blyth
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