Poet

The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.

Black musicians were imitating speech cadences, and Kerouac was imitating the black musicians' breath cadences on their horns and brought it back to speech. It always was speech rhythms or cadences as far as the ear that Kerouac was developing. All passed through black music.

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does.

I want people to bow as they see me and say he is gifted with poetry, he has seen the presence of the creator.

Satu-satunya hal yang dapat menyelamatkan dunia adalah merebut kembali kesadaran dunia. Itulah yang dilakukan puisi.

America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Amerika aku meletakkan bahu anehku ke kemudi.

I am 23, the year of the iron birthday, the gate of darkness. I am ill.

Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.

Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.

My own experience is that a certain kind of genius among students is best brought out in bed.

America, I've given you all and now I'm nothing.

I would say that Times Square was the central hangout for Burroughs, Kerouac, and myself from about 1945 to 1948.

I recommend for any basic course on the Beat Generation to familiarize yourself with 'The Idiot,' Prince Myshkin. He was Dostoyevsky's idea of the most beautiful human being he could imagine, the creation of a saint in literature.

Poets are Damned... but See with the Eyes of Angels.

Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.

I have been wrathful all my life, angry against my father and all others. My wrath must end. All my images now are of heaven.

America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?

I was putting on a stiff upper lip and trying to fulfill the obligations I thought were demanded of me, taking over my father's role of taking care of my mother... and having to be the recipient of her confessions and emotions but of a delusional nature.

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.