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

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Age: 101 †
Born: 1919
Born: March 24
Died: 2021
Died: February 22
Activist Shareholder
Journalist
Military Officer
Painter
Peace Activist
Playwright
Poet
Publisher
Translator
Writer
Yonkers
New York State
Feilingedi
Lawrence Ferling
L. Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti
Upwards
Ecstatic
Worms
Mechanism
Birds
Spite
Bird
Makes

More quotes by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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The future of publishing lies with the small and medium-sized presses, because the big publishers in New York are all part of huge conglomerates.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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My country tears of thee.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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Poetry must be capable of answering the challenge of apocalytpic times, even if this means sounding apocaltypic.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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We have seen the best minds of our generation destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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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
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Poetry can change the world, just like any art can change the world, by changing consciousness. Of course this was the great slogan of the nineteen sixites hippies’ revolution—enlarge the area of consciousness, which quite often was done by psychedelic means.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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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
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Almost every truly creative being alienated & expatriated in his own country
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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They were looking for a stable, but we didn't have one. In fact, we weren't very stable ourselves.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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For even bad poetry has relevance for what it does not say for what it leaves out.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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Make your mind learn its way around the heart.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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I didn’t know that painters and writers retired. They’re like soldiers – they just fade away.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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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
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The real literary editors have mostly been fired. Those that remain are all 'bottom line' editors everything depends on the money.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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I am waiting for the lost music to sound again in a new rebirth of wonder.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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T.S. Eliot's influence was enormous on my generation. Much more than Ezra Pound. I actually had to put T.S. Eliot books out of the house because my poetry was so influenced. Everything I wrote sounded like Eliot.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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Anyone who saw Nagasaki would suddenly realize that they'd been kept in the dark by the United States government as to what atomic bombs can do.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace' One grand boulevard with trees with one grand cafe in sun with strong black coffee in very small cups. One not necessarily very beautiful man or woman who loves you. One fine day.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti